


Resident Evil: The adventures of Leon and Claire

by TheLadyFrost



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fun and Fluff, Silly, Smut, WTF, action and adventure, why not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-10 17:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12303882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyFrost/pseuds/TheLadyFrost
Summary: Leon and Claire are running the canon however they want. And doing it there too. A fun little fic without my normal angst or drama. Just fighting, sexing, and silliness.





	1. Chapter 1

The Man with the Hair and The Girl on the Motorcycle Hanging out in Raccoon City:

The Adventures of Leon and Claire

:::::::::::::::::::::::::ONE::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do, will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, will never...never forget it."

-Curtis Judalet

Raccoon City, 1998

When you were the guy who'd just gotten dumped, it was a hard road.

Standing outside of his apartment, trying to figure out how to find his lost keys, Leon Kennedy was a man on a mission. He was drunker than piss, angrier than hell, and trying to figure out how to get into his place when he'd clearly lost his only access point potentially at the bottom of the last highball of scotch he'd dump down his gullet an hour before.

Dumped. DUMPED. What the hell? Why?

She'd stood there and said, gently, "You can't marry me, Leon, your father would never allow it."

The old man was always messing up his life. When was it going to be his chance to shine? He was tired of living in someone else's shadow all the time. Surely his moment in the sun was coming!

To the dog sitting on the corner, licking his paws, Leon slurred, "Fuck her, right buddy? Who needs women anyway?!"

The mutt barked, showing his consent to this statement. Leon nodded and flopped down on the ground beside him.

"What's the likelihood of kicking in my own door?"

He patted the mutt on the head and offered him the rest of a Slim Jim he found in his jacket.

And Leon Kennedy then proceeded to pass out in the street like a druken hobo.

When he came to, hung over and dying from it, he was still lying in the street. The mutt was still there and eyeing him thoughtfully. The sun was high and the bleary eyed that peered at his watch was telling him it was half passed four. He had to be at work for the night shift in three hours.

Somewhere between the time he'd left the house and the time he left for the first day on the job, he stopped at a place called Rosemary's. Rosemary's was a small one room salon on the corner of west shit street and nowheresville. It was run by a woman who smelled of cigarettes and summer sunshine and scotch. It was a heady combination to a kid just fresh out of the police academy and looking to piss off his father.

The old man had his days where he was, at best, tolerable. Today had not been that day.

He'd pointed his finger at his second born son and declared, "You understand me Leon Scott Kennedy, you will rue the day you decided to try your hand at rebellion. This will bite you in the ass before it is done, you can make bank on that."

The old man had always been yelling about him "making bank on that". What was THAT? What was this bank? He had yet to find out. And didn't particularly care. The old man was a douche, a right wing conservative majority whip that needed a boot to the nuts.

The oldest son, Leon's brother Tate, had followed the path of least resistance and headed off to law school to be another cog in the wheel. Leon, always the outcast and sometimes the nerd, had gotten tired of being the second rung on the ladder of legacy to his father, so he'd said "fuck it" to a life of convention and joined the police academy. At first, the old man had been irate.

But, after further reflection, he decided a son who was on the other side of the wheels of justice meant political success for the Kennedy name and so he'd gotten behind the idea. He'd made a few calls, greased a few palms, and lined up the perfect job for his second banana son to stream line his way to police chief and seal his fate forever as the legal finger in a bigger pie of justice that his father was trying to cultivate.

Leon was already on a very narrow tightrope with the old man to start with. He was a "god-damn hippie, tree hugging, free love endorsing, second amendment hating liberal" in a family of conservative republicans. He wasn't, he was all about the second amendment, but the rest was probably true. Leon was all about the free love.

He figured, why the fuck not? In a world where people were killing each other for sport, why not back the idea of free love for everyone? Somebody out there deserved to get laid man. If it wasn't him, it should be somebody.

He'd come down the stairs one morning, in his baggy academy sweatshirt and jeans, just prior to leaving for training, with his ponytail happily trailing down his neck and his father had nearly had a stroke. His son, HIS SON had girl hair. "Do you see this Muriel!?" He yelled at his wife, who at 8 a.m. was already on her second coffee cup liberally laced with Irish. "Your son is a god-damn hippie!"

Tate, his perfect brother, had been home from law school and sitting at the table in the palatial Virginia estate that always made Leon feel like he was walking through the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. Tate had all the looks in the Kennedy family. He was six foot two and muscular. He was dark haired and blue eyed and charming. Girls fell over themselves trying to get close to him. Tate was twenty four and already engaged to a girl with two last names like a proper Kennedy. She was ugly, skinny, and came from money as old as the hills.

Again, he was the golden boy.

Tate looked at him and laughed, "Relax Dad, seriously. He's rebelling. That's what the nerdy kids do after highschool."

Leon, all skinny legs and awkward angles, had hunkered down in his sweatshirt and scowled. He'd run out the front door as fast he could to meet up with his girlfriend. Maggie…MAGGIE. She was everything that mattered. And she loved his hair. Loved it.

They'd spent the afternoon before he left making love the way only the young can. Such good kids, they mooned over each other and promised the world. She said, "You know your Daddy will never let you marry me."

She was right of course. She was poor and didn't have anything but his heart. It turned out that wasn't ever going to be enough for the Kennedy name. So, she'd broken his heart instead and ran away to leave him aching in the street.

He'd honestly thought he'd die from the pain of it. He'd gone into the academy the next day mourning her like she'd died. It pushed him harder and faster to do the job and thrive at it. The skinny little hippie went into the police academy and burst out of his cocoon. He'd gone in a child and come out a man.

The old man had nearly shit a brick when he told him he wasn't going to take the job he'd lined up. The call had come out across the radio while he'd been at the academy, Raccoon City – Umbrella's burgeoning baby, was seeking qualified police presence to help patrol and protect the city. The recent crime wave meant a stronger police force.

Here, he thought wildly, my chance to be the hero. My chance to prove I'm a man.

He'd taken the job.

His father went apoplectic. He went apeshit. He swore he would disown his younger son if he didn't decline the job. Looking back on it, Leon figured the old man probably knew something was rotten in Raccoon City. He had his fingers in more pies then a baker. He knew something was wrong.

And he'd let his son go anyway. The old man always knew how best to punish his children. He probably figured anyone who went against him, offspring included, deserved what they got.

So, he went into Rosemary's to cut off the hippie hair and look more like a respectable police officer. He was in his R.P.D. uniform, nervous like a prom date, and utterly adorable. Rosemary took one look at him and said, "Nope. I'm not cutting all that beautiful hair off."

She gave him the haircut. THE HAIRCUT. He stared at it, curious if he could rock it, and she said, "Honey…that face…you own this haircut. Don't have to go army short to prove you're a serious cop, darlin. Prove that through your actions, not your looks."

Rosemary was the wisest woman he'd ever met. She was also talkative and apparently a helluva hairstylist. But she also made him late on his first day on the job.

He ate up the distance between her shop and the highway that led to the 109 into Raccoon City at a furious pace. His apartment was still filled with unopened boxes, he lost his keys twice that day trying to get moved in, and he'd spent twenty minutes trying to find his badge. It was a series of minor things that had resulted in being in a great deal of a hurry.

He whipped the Jeep onto the highway with a vengeance that was palpable. He shifted gears with a personal fury, completely unaware that he was the only car on the road. If he'd been less inclined to hurry, he'd have noticed it. If he'd have been listening to the radio and not a cassette tape, he'd have heard about it. If he'd have lost his keys and not been able to find them, he'd have been trapped in his apartment fifteen miles outside of Raccoon and he'd have never known what waited there.

He rocketed past the sign welcoming him to the city and straight into the worst night of his life. The woman in the road brought his Jeep to a rolling stop. He hesitated, curious, and glanced around while his radio blared Aerosmith at full volume. He adjusted the volume and idled in the street.

Seeing no hope for it, he climbed from the Jeep and moved to check on the woman lying there. She was on her face and twitching. Drunk? What? He knelt beside her and touched her shoulder. She turned, groaning, and she was as dead as anything he'd ever seen in his life. She was dead.

Dead? How was that even possible?

She took a lunge for his face and he panicked, falling back on his ass on the road. The dead woman crawled on top of him, moaning, bleeding and gurgling. So that was the first time Leon Kennedy had a woman on top of him moaning. It left something to be desired for what came next.

He shouted, grabbing her shoulders to push her away from him. She lunged, snapping her jaws at his throat. She had fish eyes, filmed and colorless. He heard the sounds of shuffling feet, heard the moaning, and started to see the faces in the darkness around him.

He felt the fear lance into his belly and steal his reason. He wanted to panic. He wanted to leap in his Jeep and drive way screaming like a girl. He pushed the snarling, chomping dead woman off of him and rolled to his feet. At least he'd been wise enough to grab his police issue Beretta from the Jeep before he'd climbed out.

He turned the gun on the advancing horde of people…no…not people. Not people. Dead people? No..zombies. ZOMBIES.

"Zombies?" It sounded very loud in the quiet darkness and sort of…squeaky. Faced with the undead for the first time, the great hero Leon Kennedy hadn't started kick boxing and whipping asses…oh no. He'd panicked, shouted, and squeaked in fear.

He backed down an alleyway, separated from his Jeep now by at least ten zombies. Panicked, he kept backing up, and didn't realized he'd backed right into another one. It grabbed him, moaning, and sunk its teeth into the leather strap of his shoulder holster. It saved him from a bite to the shoulder that would have killed him.

Proof, of course, that guns did indeed save lives. Somewhere, his father was thrilled. Leon was somewhat less amused. He stumbled and the zombie stayed on him trying to chew through his holster. He elbowed it in the stomach and it didn't give a shit, it kept on trying to eat him.

"Hey! Over here!" A voice shouted, drawing attention to it.

The zombie stopped chewing and looked up, Leon threw his body weight against it and shoved it off him. The voice yelled again, "Get down!"

He did, just like that. He ducked. A knife whistled by his ear as he dropped to one knee on the ground. He blinked, watching it spin, and it struck hilt deep into the forehead of the zombie. The thing was tossed back and hit the dumpster with a clang of metal.

A girl came running at him through the darkness. She grabbed his arm to help him stand. He blinked at her, still in shock. She grabbed the hilt of her knife, put a booted foot against the chest of the dead zombie, and jerked it clean. The moaning in the street was louder and closer.

She grabbed him by his breastplate and jerked at him. "Stop staring at me and RUN!"

He obeyed and they started running. She grabbed his hand and held it, leading him at a full run through the alleyway until they came out the other side. They raced across the street and were blocked by nearly a hundred shambling corpses.

"Holy fuck," She whispered it, glancing around.

Leon, finally figuring out how to use his brain again, gestured to a police cruiser not far away with its lights flashing. It was casting red and blue shadows all over the ground and the walls around it. They didn't hesitate, they hurried toward it. The person inside was missing but the keys were still in the ignition.

He leapt behind the wheel and cranked over the engine while the girl joined him in the passenger seat. He gunned it and they leapt forward, knocking down bodies like bowling pins. The cruiser jerked, bumped, and smooshed corpses with a nearly reckless glee.

Disgusted, Leon angled them toward the police station.

The silence in the cruiser was loud.

Finally, the girl spoke, "I'm Claire. Claire Redfield. I saw the uniform, I thought…well…I'm looking for my brother Chris. He works at the station. He's S.T.A.R.S."

Leon glanced at her in the semi-darkness. A pretty thing, she was young, he was betting barely out of highschool like him. Her hair was red and sleek, drawn back into a bouncy ponytail. She wore a red leather motorcycle jacket with cut off sleeves over a black skin tight t-shirt. The black biker shorts she wore were graced up top by tiny denim cutoff shorts. The cowboy boots she wore, in good buckskin brown, were old and looked soft and pettable.

He had to admit, she was a pretty bad ass chic for somebody who looked like a dirty boy's idea of a hells angel. She glanced at him, lifted a brow, and said, "Hey handsome, how about you focus on the road for me?"

Well that was embarrassing, he mused, focusing on the road as she'd asked. "I'm Leon Kennedy. I don't know your brother, I'm sorry. This is my first day on the job."

She blinked at him, blinked again, and laughed. "Are you kidding?"

"Nope."

"Helluva way to start a new job man. My condolences."

"Thanks. Any idea what's happening here?"

"No more than you. I talk to Chris three times a week. He's my touch stone. A week went by, nothing. Two weeks, nothing. So, I came looking. Because he always calls. ALWAYS."

"Where were you?"

"College. I go to Ruegar State."

"Ah."

"I hopped on my Harley and headed out here. I figured I'd find him dick deep in some girl, ya know? But not even close! This is nuts! But I can't leave without finding him."

Leon was quiet for a long moment. Claire glanced at him again. "I know what you're thinking…"

"I doubt that."

"I'm crazy right? He's dead. That's what you're thinking."

"No, I wasn't."

"It's ok. It seems crazy based on what we've seen. But he's alive. I know it. Chris is…he's….fuck it. He's just alive. I know ok? I know."

"I believe you." And he did. She was convincing. Her faith was unshakeable.

"Where'd you learn to use a knife like that?"

She smiled and there was something touching on her face. Leon felt a little sad that he'd never felt that close to his brother…or anyone in his family for that matter. "Chris. He taught me everything he knows. Our parents died…" She was silent for long time, gathering her thoughts, "They died in car crash. I was barely seventeen. Chris got custody of me, he fought for it. He was barely twenty one. But they gave him custody of me. So…he taught me everything he knew. He put me through college. I'm not leaving him here. If he's here, I'm going to find him."

Leon nodded, believing her. He turned down Granger St and they both sat in silence for a long moment.

He gestured with his head, "Check the glovebox. Odds are that someone left a spare piece in there."

Claire opened it and smiled, "Bingo. Thanks."

"Sure. What happens when we get there?"

"You want to stay with me? I could use the help."

"Oh yeah. I can't let you go alone, I might be the last cop in this place."

"Cool. Thanks." She glanced at him as he drove. He was super hot, she thought objectively, that haircut was killing it. She studied his profile. Big blue eyes, nice lips, good skin. This kid had the smell of money on him. What had he said his name was?

"Is your Dad the Senator?"

Leon said nothing and finally sighed, "Sadly."

"Dude, that blows donkey dick. What kind of life was that like?"

"Shitty. And uptight."

"For real." Claire turned in her seat a little. "You're kinda hot though. So that must have made up for it. Being rich and stuff, I bet that meant lots of girls."

Leon smirked a little, "Should I take offense to the kinda hot remark?"

"Not at all. There are three levels right? Doable, mostly ok, and kinda hot. You're the highest level."

"Is anyone ever just HOT?"

"No. Because hot guys can be dicks, big time. So they all get labeled KINDA hot."

"I see."

"Seriously I can think of worst things than running around a burning city with a kinda hot cop. So awesome for me."

She was…probably the most forthright girl he'd ever met. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about her. At all. Even a little bit. He thought he liked her, actually, and enjoyed her no nonsense manner of speaking.

He opened his mind to the idea that they might be…the last damn people on this city. It was insane to feel it and think it and wonder about it. He glanced at her pretty face.

"I think you're kinda hot too."

She blinked and her face bloomed into a big smile.

And neither of them noticed the huge tanker behind him. Well, he thought, as one of the horrible dead fuckers sat up in the back seat and took a nose dive at his face, it was a good moment before it all went to hell. He shouted, high pitched and frightened, Claire stabbed that sumbitch right in the face with her knife and saved him…again, and the car pitched.

"Leon!"

Too late, he thought miserably, they were done. It hit the wall, jackknifed across the road in a roll and spill of squealing metal and certain death. And the tractor trailer truck behind them? Boom. Wreck and wreckage and incineration.

The whomp and pop of pressure that hits before a massive explosion is hard to describe. It's like imagining how it would feel to stand inside the eye of a tornado as it strikes. There is a moment of complete and utter silence and peace – followed by the instant the world ignites in the most painful and frightening way possible.

They leapt free of the car and ran, the boy and the girl. They ran and nearly got crushed for it. The tanker hit the car, the car exploded and the tanker? It imploded. It burped and belched and blew fire and smoke and death up into the inky night sky with a skin searing, face burning regurgitation, saturating the planet in noxious chemicals and gasoline.

Where the gas spilled, the fire followed, chasing them down the street like a couple of desperate things. He grabbed the girl and threw her in front him, feeling the burst of fire all around them. Holy hell, he thought desperately, this was the worst fucking job EVER.

They hit the far side of the street and kept going. A zombie hoard was waiting for them and Leon made a sound that might have been a squeak. They turned down the far alley and ran for it. The station was close but the scene…was not good.

A burning cop car was outside, over run with the dead. The flickering and flowing red and blue lights were frightening. They burst passed it, never stopping and ran up the long steps toward the main door. They hit it, missing out being eaten by the skin of their teeth, and burst inside the large and beautiful lobby.

Leon slammed the door behind and snapped the locks.

It was dead silent in the lobby of the RPD.

And empty.

REALLY empty.

Claire leaned over and put her hands on her knees, breathing raggedly. He may, may not, have looked at her cute little butt in those shorts as he did. He excused himself, naturally, because there was adrenaline POUNDING through his body and she was pretty and he was a dude. So he looked.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was barely winded.

"You a runner?"

"Oh yeah."

"Lucky duck. I wish I could run without falling over."

"Practice and drive. And dedication."

"Thanks for the speech, Malcolm X. Let's go find Chris." She hurried through the lobby to the far door on the left. The lobby was always impressive. For those who'd never stood in it, it was a sight to see. All fountain and water and beautiful old stone. It was balconies and architecture that signified it used to be an artists wet dream. It had been converted to the police station but it was a masterpiece of the modern and classical works.

Leon followed Claire through the waiting room to the left. She wasn't hanging out and holding out for him either. She was just moving quickly. The movement of something off the tiny window there drew his attention but he couldn't quite see it.

He followed her around the corner and into the hallway beyond. She was moving, fast, and talking now. "This way. He's got to be here. And if not? He'll have left me some clue as to where he went."

"You sure?"

"Oh yeah. Yeah."

She turned back to look at him. "Hey thanks for coming with me. I know things are total shit right now. This is a nightmare. What the hell is going on here?"

"No problem. I have no clue honestly. How are we the last people left alive?"

"We weren't here when it all went down maybe?"

"Maybe."

The hallway had partially bound windows covered in boards. The mess of what had occurred here had left bodies behind but not answers. There was no way to know what had happened. They'd have to dig to find the truth.

Claire said, "The STARS office will have something. I can feel it! It's this wa—"

And something plopped on her face. She lifted her hand and swiped at it. Blood? What?

They both looked up, too slow and too stupid for their own good, and there it was. Or wasn't. Or wouldn't ever be. It was something so ugly and awful there were no words that could describe it. It was a man, or wasn't, and was inside out with naked muscle and bone and sinew lining its red, red, red form. It had claws linger and sharper and thicker than anything he'd ever seen. It had a pulsing exposed pile of brain matter on its bulbous head.

As if that wasn't bad enough? It shot down the worlds longest tongue and looped it, tight and fast, around Claire's throat. She gasped, going pink, and it jerked her up in the air to dangle while it…screeched. It screamed. It warbled a battle cry that shook the walls and scared the piss out of both of them.

And this? This was the moment that a scared rookie cop became the man who would eventually become a hero. He aimed down his arm and blasted that thing right off the ceiling.

The licker, which was a good name for it, dropped Claire as it screeched and leapt to the wall beside the ceiling where it had hung. It threw her down and she rolled, running toward Leon. And for the first time, but not the last, Leon Kennedy put her behind him.

"You ugly shit faced turd! I'm going shove that tongue up your ass!"

He'd had enough of being afraid. He was now, officially, pissed off. It leapt and came right for him. He didn't run, not this time, he filled it full of lead.

It slowed it down but it didn't stop. It leapt at him, screaming. And whipped him upside the head with that killer tongue. The blow tossed him out and into the wall. He hit, pushed off and ran for it. The gun clicked empty and Claire was there with him.

The licker swiped those huge claws at his belly and missed by an inch. He kicked it in the face. His boot slipped and hit the mooshy brain instead. The licker screamed, scrambling on the ground to try to get away.

OH. OH YEAH. "HIT IT IN THAT NASTY BRAIN!"

Claire stopped, studied it, and threw the knife toward its retreating back. It flew, dart fast, and struck it clean in that pulsing brain matter. The licker squealed so loud and high that it hurt their ears. Claire covered hers, watching it twitch, twitch, scramble those huge claws and flip over on its back to die there like a cockroach.

It lay motionless as a widening pool of blood surrounded it.

Finally Leon walked toward it, his face smarting. He grabbed the handle of her blade and jerked it clean. He palmed it, rolled it, and flipped it to hand it back to her.

Claire glanced at his face. "You…protected me."

"…did I?"

"You did."

"I'm a cop, yeah? So that's what I'm supposed to do."

Claire grabbed his vest and pulled him to her. She kissed him, hard, right on the mouth. It was a nice kiss, he thought objectively, and he felt a bit like a hero for it. He grinned. She grinned.

And then she said, "That was the GROSSEST thing I have EVER seen. And this includes my cousin Marvin's satanic shrine to his cat."

Leon nodded, "I walked in on my cousin and my other cousin bumpin uglies once. That was pretty gross. This was worse."

Claire laughed a little and grabbed the door knob to the STARS office. She pushed it open. The disappointment was intense. No Chris. Nobody. It was depressing. Had she thought he'd be there waiting for her? Maybe he'd kick up his boots and throw that whoopie cushion he was always using under Jill Valentine's ass again? Shit.

Leon touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

She looked over at his face. God DAMN it was a nice face. Kinda hot was REALLY hot when you coupled it with a nervous little guy who'd gone all alpha male out there and killed the…flipped out man. The muscley mutant dude? No. "What do we call that thing?"

"I was calling it a licker."

"That works." Claire moved to Chris' desk to dig around. "I like a little tongue from a man but that? That was….ugh."

"Yeah it was. What the fuck is happening here?"

"Science Fiction shit, clearly." Claire found the picture of them together on the 4th of July. Chris? Where ARE you? She tried to picture him as a zombie and couldn't. NO. Not now. Not EVER.

She moved to the board on the wall, studying the pins and strings in it. It was cannibal murders stuff. It was lots of things. And the fax machine had a fax on it. She moved to and picked it up.

She read it.

Leon was digging in desks. He found a goldmine. There was a .44 long barrel Magnum locked in the bottom drawer. A letter opener and a whack had given him access to it. He picked it up and felt like Dirty Harry. The spare rounds were easy to poke in his pack.

"Look at this shit, Claire. Me and Clint Eastwood huh?"

Claire lifted her eyes and grinned. "He's gone. He's not here. But he's FINE."

"How do you know?"

"He sent THIS. It's a transmission. It's coded but Chris isn't CIA, it's not hard to crack. It was aimed at Jill. She must still be in the city."

"You want to find her?"

Claire watched him load the Magnum. He was something. Handsome and funny and going with it. It was hard to not like him. She moved toward him.

"You mind? She's my brother's best friend. If she's here? I can't leave her."

"Why not? We're already here. If there are survivors? I have to help them. It's why I took this job right?"

"I think the job is done, Leon. Seriously."

"Only idiots think the job is done when there's no paycheck. You sign up to help people? You help people. That's the reason you become a cop."

Leon holstered the Magnum in his empty thigh holster. He put the empty pistol in his shoulder holster. They needed more ammo. Surely in a police station there was more ammo. Surely.

"You're very noble, Leon Kennedy."

"I'm really not. Right now? I'm scared as piss, hung over, and kinda afraid we might turn into zombies. But I'm also no coward, Claire. I'll see it through."

She grinned at him and took his hand, squeezing it. "Thank you. Thank you. Who just says yes like that?"

"An idiot?"

"No. A good guy. A good guy does that. You ready?"

"Yeah. Let's find some fucking ammo. Or we won't make it very far."

Claire smiled again and they started searching all the desks for anything useful. Jill had a set of lockpicks. Claire took them but she wasn't sure they'd do anyone any good. Chris had a rubber chicken in his desk, a shoe horn, and three pennies. He also had a booby magazine taped under his desk. Claire laughed, loudly, and then made a sound like a sob.

Leon glanced at her, surprised.

She lifted her hand, shaking her head, "I'm sorry. I miss him. I'm worried. He's such a goof."

"You said he's safe. Remember that. And let's get you out of here to join him."

Leon found a goldmine in the bottom drawer of the desk on the far side. Claire was messing with the communication system, trying to send a distress call out with no luck. Leon said, "Bingo. Come get some of these bullets."

He set a case of 9mm rounds on the desk. They filled up spare mags and took as many spare rounds as they could. Claire strapped on the fanny pack sitting on Jill's desk and managed to stuff it full of rounds.

"Awesome. And better." Claire pointed, "Can you get that thing to run?"

Leon shrugged and smacked it. It hissed and buzzed.

"….really? I could have done that, handsome. Seriously?"

"Seemed the right thing at the time." And the console popped on. It spit voices at them. Garbled and discombobulated but they were voices. Leon hit buttons and tried to raise the other person on the back side of the communication. Nothing.

Claire remarked, "At least we know people are alive right?"

"Yeah. Yeah."

They stepped out into the hallway…and came face to face with a little girl.

Claire blinked. Leon blinked. The little blonde girl squealed loud, sharp, and ran down the hallway away from them. Claire gave chase, "WAIT! WAIT!"

The little girl scrambled into a floor vent and disappeared. Claire yelled down to her, "HEY HEY! Come back! We can HELP you!"

"Can you fit in there?"

Claire glanced at him, eyebrow raised, "You kidding? See these?" She gestured to her boobs, "These guarantee the answer is no."

A few moments passed. Claire said, drolly, "Stop staring at my boobs, Leon."

"Sorry. Sorry." Leon coughed, pink faced, "I'm a guy. You pointed. Apologies."

He was adorable. She was pretty sure she liked him a lot. Claire rose studying the crooked hallway. "We need to find her. Now. She can't be safe here."

"I dunno. She's still alive. That makes her smarter than everyone else right?"

It was a good point. "Should we split up to look for her?"

"I'd rather not, seriously. I don't want you to get hurt."

Oh. How sweet…and kinda sexist. But kinda sweet. Claire grabbed his vest again and kissed him. Again, it was a good smack of lips. He blinked at her and grinned.

"Thanks."

"Sure. Keep talking sweet. I'll get a crush on you."

"Yeah?"

"Why not? We're the only two people alive in this place. Besides Solid Snake wherever she is in the ducts."

Leon chuckled. And he looked at her face. She looked back. He lifted a hand to curl it around her face. Oh, Claire thought, ok. Yeah, let's do this. She curled hers around the shoulder of his vest. She closed her eyes and waited.

Leon said, "Holy fucking hell."

And Claire grinned. "Right. Do it."

"….Claire?"

Her eyes opened. Leon was staring over her head. And his eyes were HUGE. She turned, horror movie slow. And there was the ugliest thing in a trench coat she'd EVER seen watching them. It was pale faced and looked like a wax man or something. It was like ten feet tall and wearing black. It was filthy and was moving down the hallway toward them.

Claire whispered, softly, "What now?"

"Seriously? RUN!"

And so they did. They ran for it. But it was ok. It was good to run. They were just two kids trapped in a police station with zombies and mutants and lickers. They ran for it.

What were they going to do? Stand and fight? Who did that kind of thing?!

And the big nasty creature man gave chase, shaking the building all around them.


	2. Chapter 2

II: The Woman in Red, The Dude in the Trench Coat, and the Eyeball in the Shoulder: WHAT?

ALEA IACTA EST

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." – Edgar Allen Poe

:::::::::::::::::::::::::TWO::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Raccoon City, 1998

The dude in the trench coat was a scary mofo. He chased them down the hallway while they ran. They hit the far door, burst free, and kept running. Meanwhile, the windows with the boards? Yeah, they were shit city.

Crap.

Bogus corn.

The windows burst and boards creaked and split and bodies just came pouring into to try to eat them. Claire screamed, Leon stomped one into the ground, and they started leaping like Olympic hurdlers. They burst into the next room. It was a conference room or a lecture hall or something.

Claire ran down the stairs and Leon followed her.

"You been here?"

Leon shook his head, "Nope! First day remember?"

"Didn't you come here to interview?"

"Yeah. ONCE. I met the police chief, I shot some shit, I took a test. THAT was it!"

"Fail!"

"And then some! You ever visit?"

"Not this place. This is the room where Chris took naps. That's all I know!" They turned left and went out the door. They were in another hallway. They raced down it and there they were fucked.

Screwed.

And scared.

A helicopter had taken a nose dive and burst into the roof and wall where it was now lodged, sorta desperately. It just…sat there, burning and stinking. The dead pilot was flopped out of the broken windshield, roasted and blackened. It smelled like burnt hair and armpit or something. It was bad.

There was a half sagging door to one side. Leon hit with his shoulder.

And the dude in the trench coat walked right into the hallway. He ducked, he walked. He was the perfect psycho killer. He just walked after them and wasn't in a hurry. He looked bored.

"FUCK!

Leon agreed with Claire.

He hit the door again and it was locked. He put his boot to it. It shivered. He grabbed her, "Kick it until it opens."

"What?"

"I'll hold this asshole here. KICK THE DOOR!"

She started kicking. Leon pulled his pistol. Ok, his brain said, this is target practice. Just do it. And he did it. He just started firing.

That ugly face jerked, jerked, and burst with blood. But it kept on coming. And grabbed his around the throat. It lifted him, shook him, and smashed him into the wall. He kept right on going through the wall.

He burst into the next room, an office of some kind, and hit the far wall there. He came down, half dead? Or something. It hurt. The pain lanced into his chest and had him rolling to his side.

Claire cried, "LOOK OUT!"

And he rolled. The fist smashed where he'd been. And would have decimated him.

He got to his feet and over turned the desk beside him. The next fist smashed the desk into splinters and screams of metal joints. Holy shit. There was such a thing as being outclassed, outassed, and screwed. This was that moment. He couldn't see how it could get worse.

And then the thing punched him in the face.

Pop. He got his arm up, sorta, and blocked the blow a little. Which probably saved him a broken nose and swallowing his own god damn teeth. But it felt like being donkey kicked by a horse from hell anyway. He went down, felt dizzy, and waited to die.

And Claire was on its back. She leapt on it, giving a warrior's whoop of battle, and shot it in the back of the head at close range. It teeter tottered, it stumbled. And Leon yelled, "TIMBER!"

He rolled, rolled, and down it came. It smashed face first into the floor beside him and was still.

Claire leapt off at the last second and he made an OOMPH as she landed on top of him. She looked at him where he lay on the floor. And grinned.

"I saved you."

"Seems that way."

"You are a bit clumsy huh?"

Well that was insulting, kinda. He was pretty agile. Hand to god, he was good. He was. He was just scared stupid and facing something the size of an elephant. It was going to be his time to shine soon, he was sure of it.

"I have my moments."

They looked at each other from inches away. She looked at his mouth. He thought, DERP, and she said, "I'm gonna kiss you."

"Yeah. Let's do that."

It was a good kiss this time. Smooth. Kinda soft. And sweet. It also hurt like a sumbitch. Right down his battered face. He winced. "Ouch."

"That bad?"

"Nope. That part was really great. The fist in the face before? That part sucked."

"You're starting to bruise."

"Awesome. Not such a hot face now huh?"

"No. Still kinda hot." Claire helped him to his feet. He stumbled a little and she put her arm around his waist for a minute.

"Thanks."

"Sure. You're so brave. Are you usually brave? Or is it just trying to impress me?"

"Seems to be instinctual. Should I run? Probably. But I pictured you splattered on the wall and I didn't like that. So I figured, fuck it. Let's fight."

Oh. She liked that. She looked at his face. His nose was swollen and kinda purple. She thought he was the cutest thing she'd ever seen.

"Hero."

"Hardly. I think I peed myself a little."

And now she laughed. And he laughed. It felt really good to do it. A little voice came down to them, "He'll get back up. You should run away!"

They looked up at the ducts. Claire yelled, "Come out! We'll help you!"

"I can't! He's following me. So you have to go away now ok? He'll kill you. You have to run away. Go find the Chief's office. There's a way through there to the lab."

"The lab?"

"It's where my mommy worked. Where my daddy worked. Go through there ok? And get away from here."

"Who ARE you?" Leon was trying to pinpoint where she was exactly in the ducts. But it echoed and was impossible.

"I'm Sherry."

"Sherry? I'm Claire. Claire Redfield. I will protect you. This is Leon Kennedy. He's a cop. Come down here and let us help you."

That tiny voice said, "I can't. It will keep coming for me. Please run. Don't try to find me."

They heard her little footsteps running away.

Claire glanced at his face. Leon shrugged. "We should go to the office. It might have the answers about what happened here."

"Ok." They looked at the door out of the little room they were in. "This way?"

"I actually know the way to Iron's office. So yeah." They moved, quietly, through the door and into the hallway. It was thick and hot in the hallway. Clearly this was spill off from the burning chopper left behind them.

Claire and Leon moved down the narrow hallway together. She glanced at his face as they walked. "Sorry about your face."

"No worries. It's not the first or the last time someone's going to deck me, so I'll live."

Claire took his hand and held it. He smiled a little and held her hand. He kept his pistol loose but ready in the other one. She did the same. Since he was left handed and she was right handed, it worked for them.

At the door to Iron's office, she said, "This is like the weirdest kinda date I've ever been on."

"Is this a date?"

"It's something. I dig you."

Leon nodded, grinning. "I dig you too. You're a saucy chic with a dirty mouth. I like it."

"You're a clumsy hot ass cop with awesome hair who is noble and self sacrificing. How can I NOT like that?"

"The eternal riddle. Let's find that little girl and get the hell out of this dump."

"Deal." She opened the door to the office.

Now this is the moment in a good story where our heroes are given a glimpse into the horrors that will come later. There was a dead body there waiting for them. Because the secret chamber behind Iron's office was wide open to reveal it. They didn't have to find any jewels or any keys or do any puzzles or anything. It was kinda great. (Though not nearly as fun).

The dead body was very dead. But not zombie undead. It was just dead. And looked like it had a big dark stain on its belly. Clearly it had been gutted. It was a girl, who'd once been pretty before she'd died.

Irons, a fat and ugly man with a mustache and wandering lecherous eye, looked to Claire first. "There you are. They sent you to tempt me then? You are a sexy little thing. They knew that Beth was dead. They knew I would need another to replace her. You came."

Claire glanced at Leon. He lifted a brow.

"Chief? I'm Leon Kennedy. I think we're in danger here. I think you should come with us to get out of here."

"No. I won't be leaving. Kennedy? Kennedy…" He considered, pacing by the dead body, "You are new?"

"First day."

"Shitty first day kid."

"You're telling me."

Irons glanced at Claire again. "You are here to replace Beth?"

"…uh…no. I'm here to find Jill Valentine. Do you know her?"

That was the wrong thing to say. The already mad Irons, one look in those priggish eyes in that piggy face told them he was nuttier than a fruit cake, was driven insane from that. "VALENTINE!? VALENTINE AND REDFIELD!? THOSE TWO SUMBITCHES! LIARS! FOOlS! THEY DID THIS!"

Claire looked at Leon. He shrugged.

"Shut up! You old goat! My brother didn't do this! I'm starting to think YOU did it!"

"REEEEDDDFIELLLLLD!" It was a horrid cry. Awful. It shook the room and shook the walls. And Chief Irons hit a button the wall. The dead body on the floor fell through an opening that had started. And Irons rushed them.

Claire squeaked and jumped aside as he tried to grab her. Leon? Well he hooked a right at the fat police chief, caught him in the face, drove a knee into his fat belly and kicked. The kick hit him in the hip and spun him around. Irons staggered, roaring, and fell down into the opening.

He yelled as he fell and made a crash somewhere down below when he hit.

They looked at each other.

Claire said, "What the fudge is happening here?"

"I have no clue. It feels surreal."

"Right? I was playing pool yesterday and trying to get Derek in my Biology class to ask me out."

"Did he?"

"No."

"His loss."

Claire chuckled. "He wasn't nearly as flipping cute as you anyway."

Leon winked at her. He started to say something flirty or stupid or lame and the sound of something roaring made them show each wide, wide, wide eyes.

Something burst out of the opening where Iron's had fallen. It was like a disgusting poop with big blobby eyes. It had long, long arms that dragged the floor and one of them was holding the dead body of "Beth". It was wearing what had started life as Iron's clothes but were ripped and ruined. It was the color of good red earth and resembled a poop and something from Alien. It roared from a stingy little mouth filled with sharp, jagged teeth.

"Whafuck?" Leon shouted.

Whafuck was rapidly becoming their battle cry. They split apart as it threw the dead body at them. Poor Beth. She smacked the wall between them and splatted, throwing blood and slop all around her. She squished to the floor and squelched, broken.

They started to fire at the poop that had been Chief Irons. He roared, humping around the room like a twisted hunchback. He swung at them and Leon grabbed Claire to throw her to the floor. He took the hit and went up and out, coming down atop the dead body. Disgusting, he rolled away.

Claire fired into the blobby eyes, running away when it smashed an arm to the floor where she'd been standing. Leon rolled, missing the next swipe, and Claire jerked him to his feet. They flanked it, splitting its focus. It tried to grab him and Claire shot it in the ass.

It spun back and Leon jumped on its back. Claire tossed her knife up to him and he scrambled like a sloppy rock climber up its nasty hump. She shot it again in the face and got knocked down for her efforts. Leon drove her big knife right into the top of its head. Two arms up, full speed, he smashed it down into the brain of it and jerked. It bucked, tossing him around. He held onto the hilt of the knife like a person riding rodeo. It shook him around and spun around. His legs were catching wind but his hands held on.

He grabbed the knife and ripped it clean. He went spinning and hit the wall, sliding down it. Claire stood in front of him, aiming her gun.

But the poop that had been Irons was done for. It reeled, it raged, it hit the far wall and collapsed onto its face. Deadsville. The silence was very loud now.

Leon got to his feet, shaking his head. "What is happening in this dump?"

"Pretty sure I have NO idea. It's bad though. Real bad. I'm thinking we're gonna find the answers down there."

They both looked down into the darkness. And then at each other. And then down into the hole again.

Leon said, "I don't want to go down there."

Claire laughed, softly, "Me either. But what choice is there?"

"Exactly. I'll go first." He moved and climbed down the ladder. Brave kid, Claire mused, as she followed his cute ass down the ladder. He caught her at the bottom as she leapt off and set her beside him.

Parking lot.

"That's it?" Claire queried.

"Apparently."

"Fail."

"Yep."

There was a bunch of cars and the sad remnants of what had been a stand off between the living and the dead. Bodies were three deep and stinking with being burnt where they lay. The Mayor was there, deader than Moses, and dispatched by a bullet between the eyes. Someone had killed the Mayor.

"Shit." Claire whispered. "Shit."

"That about covers it."

And the growling started. They turned, slowly. Three dogs were there watching them. Dogs? No. Not exactly. But kinda. They were rotting dogs. The skin and muscle had split and run red with blood and infection. You could see naked muscle and bone and sinew in their popped open flesh. Their faces had started to decay and showed gums and elongated teeth. Their mouths had split back enough with erosion to look like ugly sneers on their spittle flecked countenances.

"Gross."

Leon laughed. He just laughed. She was so calm. Who was this girl? She was the coolest chic in the world. She just didn't flinch. She rolled with it.

"I hate dogs." Claire said and fired on the first one. It yelped, fell to the side, and twitched.

The second one rushed them. Leon shot it, it stumbled, went head over ass and skidded along the ground. The third one leapt atop the hood of a car, jumped out of the way when Claire shot it, and rushed at them. So not entirely stupid.

Leon aimed at it and another one jumped on him. It took him to the ground, growling and snapping at his face. He panicked, lost his marbles, and could do nothing but try to keep it from eating him. His gloved hands slipped into the nasty flesh on its neck, peeling it back like a rotting banana. GROSS.

It made a dive for his face and Claire shot it, twice. She shot it in the side of its growling head.

It yelped and fell left, twitching.

He rose, shuddering.

They turned and there was a girl running at them. A girl. She yelled, "Look out!"

And they ducked as one burst over their heads toward her. She waited, this girl, and spun a roundhouse kick. She took it out in midair. It yelped, scrambling on the ground, and she put a round right into its face.

Silence.

Leon looked at her. She was beautiful. Asian and wearing a red dress and dark panty hose. She had on high heels and she made him feel funny in his pants.

He stared at her.

She stared back.

And finally spoke, "Is he retarded or something?'

Claire nudged him with her elbow. "Wake up, hotshot."

Leon shook his head. He said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Ada Wong. Who are you?"

"I'm Claire Redfield." Claire eyed her. She didn't like her. "Bad news" was written all over her. She was tall, which was annoying, beautiful and deadly clearly which was a pain in the ass. And she did NOT like Leon looking at her like that.

Ada said, "What about you handsome?"

"I'm Leon. Leon Kennedy." He offered her a hand. Smirking, Ada shook it. She winked at him a little.

Claire pursed her lips. "What are you doing down here, Ada Wong?"

Ada studied her. She didn't like the girl. The girl was a pain. The handsome boy cop? An idiot. Clearly. And probably easy enough to lead around by his dumb stick.

"Looking for my boyfriend, John. He's a researcher. He was here last I heard. I came…there was…it was over run. I have to find him." She put on her damsel in distress hat for show. Leon fell for it. Claire? She narrowed her eyes.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

"I'm Asian. Clearly I do marital arts."

Claire snorted out a laugh. "That is stereotyping."

"Not if you're Asian." Ada met Leon's eyes. "You want to help me find him?"

Leon blinked. Claire elbowed him in the gut. He oomphed and gave her a glare. She answered Ada, quietly, "We're looking for a little girl. You seen her?"

"No. I've found a way through there." She pointed to the far doors. "I think it's the kennels. The thing is? I found a map that says the path to the lab where John worked is through there. I don't have the key."

Claire moved to the door. Leon said, "This key?"

They all looked at him. He grinned. "Iron's had it."

Ada winked at him, "What a guy you are."

Claire gnashed her teeth a little. He was so stupid. She was playing him. Surely he knew that.

They moved together into the kennels. The kennels were rank and awful. They were dank and musty and dark and smelled like wet dog and rotting meat. Claire shuddered and they moved down the hallway. At the bend in the hallway, a voice said, "You found me!"

There was a guy in one of the locked kennels. He was tall and handsome with a ponytail and a dirty white shirt on. He was sitting on the bed there, watching them. "You here to rescue me?"

Leon answered, "…sure?"

"No way. What's this? A rookie? A hell's angel? And what? A pharmaceutical rep?"

Ada Wong chuckled, "Ben Bertolucci."

"How'd you know that?"

"Your picture is always with your stories in the paper."

"Oh." Bertolucci studied them, "I'm not coming out there. I'm safe in here. Safe. Those things can't get me. I have plenty of food. Come back with the SWAT team or something."

"Mr. Bertolucci, I need to find John. He's my boyfriend. He works in the lab. Where is he?"

She really needed to silence Bertolucci. It was part of her mission. She needed to put him down. But she couldn't do it with Doofy the Handsome Dumb Cop and Angry Biker Bitch standing guard. She had to get rid of them.

"The lab is through the manhole in the corner there. But you'll never find him. The lab was over run first. You know why? They did it. They released this shit. They all knew about it. Irons? He was in on it. And the STARS. And Umbrella. They leaked it. They left it. They ran away. Fuckers."

Claire shook her head. "Not STARS. Nope. Liar."

She turned away to go to the manhole cover. Bertolucci snorted at her. "Believe me or not, girl. I don't care. I have proof. I'm gonna send it when I get out of this dump. So I don't care if you believe me. The world will. And that's where my Nobel Prize is waiting."

Ada opened her mouth to say something and a pink poop with teeth came through the window above the kennel. She watched it. It flopped and plopped onto the floor near Bertolucci. He made a sound and stepped away from it. It was like a nasty baby eel in slimey pink and red. It looked like something that burst out of the chest of people in Alien. It shrieked and squealed as it flooped around on the floor.

Leon tried to shoot it and missed. It flopped over to Bertolucci and climbed up his body. He screamed, trying to jerk it off of him. They could do nothing but watch is chewed its way through his body. Horrified, they all watched it splatter blood and break bone. It munched, he screamed, the crack and pop of bone and breaking was so loud it was awful. Blood gushed, from his eyes and nose and mouth. And it was inside his body, nestling in him or something like a disgusting Luke Skywalker inside the tonton on Hoth.

Leon shot the body. It jerked, flopped and was still.

Ada turned away toward the manhole.

Claire and Leon stood staring at the nasty dead body. They glanced at each other. And the body of Ben Bertolucci flopped. Leon shot it, reflexively. It didn't care. It burst apart like a thrown water balloon. Blood sprayed in a thick red wash. They covered their faces and Bertolucci's body fell to the floor. The pink baby poop was now the size of a raccoon. It squealed and shot between the bars toward them.

Claire shouted, Leon shot at it and missed. It darted fast and furious away from them, flipping and flopping and zipping down the hallway. They'd both danced away from it like it was…well…a slimy pink poop with teeth.

The manhole was open, Bertolucci was deader than disco, and Wong was long gone. What a night they were having. Claire put her tongue in her cheek, "Your girlfriend just flew the coop, rookie."

Leon blinked and smirked. "Jealous?"

"Don't be a hoser. She's shady and all kinds of stupid. Remember that when you're chasing after her perfect ass."

"She seems smart enough. She survived right?"

"So did a little girl."

"Good point."

They stared down the manhole. Claire looked at him. He looked back. And finally she said, "Ladies first this time."

Down she went. It was dark at the bottom of the ladder. She dropped down and was ankle deep in water that smelled stagnant and felt oily to the touch. She sniffed and it smelled like wet dog and as—

Leon jumped down basically on top of her.

Claire grunted, tossed to the side. He grabbed her in the mostly dark tunnel they were in and exclaimed, "Sorry! Shit!"

He held her upright. Claire gave him a dirty look in the darkness. And someone hit the emergency lights. Probably Ada Wong wherever she'd run off to.

The world was lit in an eerie red light. And they were both staring into the eye…eyes…lots and lots of eyes of an ENORMOUS tarantula. It scrambled on the wall directly beside them. Claire squeaked, Leon raised his gun to shoot it, and another one spit…acid…or something disgusting at them from the ceiling. He shoved her instead. Leon Kennedy shoved her over in the water. She went backward, went under the dirty water, and choked. But the acid struck where she'd been and didn't burn her.

So there was that.

She came up sputtering to the flash of his muzzle in the red lighting.

And a bloated, fat, hairy body splashed into the water a foot from her. Claire shouted as the water splashed in her face and the dead giant spider twitched and curled up right there next to her. She scrambled away, gasping.

Leon took care of the other one while she ran away from a third one that was spitting acid everywhere. She ducked left, rolled right, and finally spun back to fire at it. She shot it clean in its nasty fat belly. It skittered and shivered, making a chittering sound as it ran away. Leon peppered it with more shots and it finally made a squelching sound as it pulled free from the wall and plopped into the water to join its dead brothers.

Leon and Claire shuddered and leapt up into the outcropping across from them. They went through a steel door and into the next chamber. The sewers, clearly. And a large, rotating, disgusting fan was spinning there. It was ventilation, obviously, and was currently moving slow enough they could…probably…slide in between the blades.

There were gross pods stuck to the walls. They looked like cocoons. They were just sitting there shivering and shaking. Like they'd start…hatching…any….minute.

And so they did. They split, popping with an odiferous stench that made one think of fart after a long day of denial. It was burritos and beer and wet ass. A horribly stench. And tiny bugs kept popping out to give chase as they ran. Leon, agile as hell, ducked between the blades and came out the other side. Claire frozen, afraid, as the blades whirled around. They'd hack her in half if she hesitated.

The bugs got in her hair, she screamed loudly, and fell into the path of the blades. Leon shouted her name, grabbed her, and jerked her free of the rotating death a second before she was turned into a Claire sandwich. He batted the nasty bugs from her hair while she shuddered.

"All done?"

"Yeah. You're good."

"Thanks. Whafuck?"

"I know."

They moved down the ladder to the next level of the ventilation duct. And they were crossing over what was clearly the power supply area for the station. The water beneath, the bridge across, the door opposite, it was leading them somewhere. So they kept on going.

The floor was metal and holey. You could see down into the churning water. It was a perilous fall and probably an instant death. The best case scenario? You were swept off into the grinding gears at the far side of the water, resulting in a complete ripped to pieces end. Broken bones and blood and gurgling horror.

Claire said, "Scary."

Leon turned back to her. The breeze caught his hair, shifting it around his face. That face, she mused, gorgeous. "You ok? I know it's a big drop right? Scary as shit. I'm a good swimmer but that looks like the worlds worst undertow. Pretty sure we'd be dead in minutes."

She grabbed his vest. He looked at her face, thought, derp, and she moved to kiss him. This girl, he thought wildly, she was always trying to kiss him at the worst times. Because the fat pink poop from Bertolucci's cell exploded out of the water.

It flopped and plodded with a metallic whine onto the walkway near the power supply. It squealed, squishing and wiggling. It might have been cute…if it didn't have a mouth full of bloody teeth and they hadn't seen it eat into and OUT OF Bertolucci an hour before. And if it wasn't growing to be the size of a small bus as they stood there, horrified, and trapped in awe of it.

Now it was the size of a great white shark. It roared as it leapt and came down, shaking the walkway beneath them. They stumbled, grabbed each other, and glanced at it. Claire said, "You got that Magnum?"

"You bet."

"Blow that fucker away."

It was a good idea. He pulled it and it was airborne, screaming and flying like a fat, pink, disgusting and hungry blob. It landed, knocking Claire completely off the walkway. Leon watched her hit the water and turned back to the pink blob.

It opened its nasty mouth to eat him and he fired two shots from the .44 right into its gaping maw. It gulped, its roar cut short. Leon holstered the Magnum and drew his pistol. He put three rounds into it and it slapped him. He held on, launched up into the ceiling. He held on and shot it again as it tried to shake him loose. It put him into its bleeding mouth, he figured he was dead, and someone was shooting it. It was Claire, trapped in the water against the wall, inches from the grinding gears of death…she was firing on it.

Leon rolled a little, aimed down his arm, and shot it right its piggy eyes.

It threw him out. He came down in the water, went under, and fought against the tide. He heard it scream and flop in after them. Well shit…SHIT. It grabbed him, he rolled, and Claire screamed, "LEON!"

He flipped over, avoided teeth in his face, and caught the knife she threw him. It was coming down with more instinct than thought. He drove it into the blob and again…and again for good measure. Blood stained pink through the water around them. Leon rolled under it, lost his breath as the water whipped and slapped him around, and came up to drive his boots into its face. It grabbed him, she slashed it, and kicked off it like a diving board.

It worked. Like a charm. The blob lost its grip on him and was jerked free into the rushing tide. It hit the gears beside Claire and was devoured, bursting in a rush and gush of blob and bloody chunks. They sprayed everywhere like an acid rain of crap and filth. Plopping and flopping permeated the air and was finally washed away in the tide. Leon was jerked after it now and Claire grabbed him as he got close to the gears. She jerked him over and against her. He was smashed against her and the undertow shoved his body flat to hers to pin them both to the wall.

They weren't dead. But they were screwed. They couldn't fight the water to get out and eventually they'd lose the ability to keep standing here too. What could they possibly do?

A little voice yelled, so soft over the din and roar of the water, "HERE! GRAB THIS!"

It was the little girl they'd seen. She was throwing a rope down to them from the ventilation duct above the water where she was hiding. "GO ON! HURRY!"

Leon grabbed it first and Claire's hand second. He jerked, putting his ass behind it, and threw her up the wall. She grabbed the line like a mountain climber and started up. He was after her, rappelling with a surprising amount of skill. Let's hear it for eight grade gym, he mused, and teaching me to climb ropes.

They reached the ventilation shaft and the little girl helped them in. Breathless, exhausted the two of them leaned on opposite sides of the round tunnel, relearning how to not be afraid. The little girl looked at Leon and said, "You were a hero."

Leon shook his head, "No. Just a guy versus a blob."

Claire answered, "Who are you honey?"

"I'm Sherry Birkin. I'm sorry about before. I wanted to trust you. But I didn't know if I could. But you fought that thing…you killed it."

Leon quipped, "Luck, I assure you. I'm not that good."

Sherry shifted a little. She was adorable with a little upturned nose and big blue eyes. Her blonde hair was wet but looked well kept. Her dress was dirty but expensive. Someone had loved and taken care of this little girl.

"Can we help you find your mommy and daddy?"

Sherry looked at Claire. "I don't know. They were never home before anyway. I don't think they're still alive. At least…I know my daddy is dead."

"I'm so sorry."

Claire hugged her and Sherry held on. "Why don't we find your mommy and go from there? Ok?"

Sherry nodded.

Leon glanced to the end of the duct. "You know the way to the lab, Sherry?"

Sherry considered this. "Yes. But…they won't let us escape. My daddy…he's still here."

She whispered it, frightening. She whispered it in a voice you'd hear in the movies to signify horror. She was terrified.

"Is he a zombie?" Claire asked, gently.

"No…no. He's something else."

Leon lifted his brows, "Like what?"

And something, somewhere, started roaring. It was horrible and frightening and so loud that the duct shivered around them. Sherry squealed, in fear, and ran down the tunnel away from them.

"Sherry! WAIT!"

And the roaring came again, "SHERRRRRRRYYYYY!"

Leon and Claire locked eyes, terrified, and started running after her. They could hear the squeal and scream of metal. Whatever it was? It was in the power supply room where they'd been. They followed Sherry down the tunnel and hoped to HELL it couldn't fit in after them.


	3. Chapter 3

III. Here Comes Trouble and Some Guys Get All the Girls

AUT NECA AUT NECARE

"Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep."  
― Clive Barker, Days of Magic, Nights of War

:::::::::::::::::::::::::THREE::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The roaring chased them down the tunnel and out the other side. They ran for it, frightened but dedicated to escape. They leapt down into another wet tunnel.

And then?

Well and then came the worlds ugliest, fattest, biggest crocodile.

It was massive. The size of a school bus. It was the size of a semi. It was screaming and had three thousand bajillion teeth. It was warty, lumpy, bumpy and running right at them.

"CHRIST IN A MINI SKIRT!" Yelled Leon, "FUCKING RUN!"

Claire was already running. They separated, Claire running down one tunnel. Leon went left. And the thing? It chased him. Naturally. Because he wanted girls to chase him but no. Sewer gators though? Naturally.

He was catnip for monsters.

You wanted to be a hero, his mind chastised, here ya go! You're now a hero in a bad science fiction novel. Congratulations! Is it everything you hoped for?

The tunnel shook and spilled debris down on him as she ran. The gator? It took a nasty swipe at his head. He lost some hair as he rolled, scrambled, and nearly fell down to his death to be crushed beneath its rampaging mass.

He ran right by the first canister of crap in the alcove on the wall before he figured out what it had said. WARNING! Highly flammable. It was gas clearly. Or something. Why was it there? What was the purpose of it?

Leon turned back and grabbed the canister. He unscrewed the top where it was hooked to the wall. The sewer gator was less than ten feet away. Letting out a terrified, high pitched squeak of sound, Leon threw the canister to the floor beside him and fled.

He was very aware that someone was muttering ohshitohshitohshitohshit under their breath as they ran. Yeah, it was him. He was a chicken. No lie. But he was still alive. So forget bravery, he mused, run for your life.

The crocodile…alligator? Who the hell could tell the difference!? It chased him, roaring from that enormous mouth. Leon spun back, at the end of the long tunnel where he had no choice now. Stand or die.

Probably both.

The beast scooped up the canister in its wide open jaws. Why the fuck not? He mused. And fired at it. Not the gator. Nope. He fired at the can in its mouth.

Ping. Ping. Pi-

The whoosh of fire and whomp of explosion stamped him down to the ground like a slinky. He plopped to his belly and felt the fire lick hungry and hot where he'd been standing. The force of the blast shoved him into the wall and left him there to wait for the concussion of it to pass.

He glanced up, feeling the roasting roll of burning body. And the gator was still there. Yep…kinda. It had no face, so that was a plus, as its head had been exploded like a grenade of crap, blood, and stench. The smell of roasting rotten gator filled the air around him.

He felt it, horrified by it, and it didn't matter. He rolled to the side and threw up all over the ground.

Awesome, he thought as he ralphed, nothing barfing from pain, fear, and disgust. Really American hero here, ladies and gentlemen. Feast your eyes on what happens when normal people face monsters.

Claire came running down the hallway as Leon stuffed a stick of gum in his mouth and started chewing. It was better than nothing.

She froze, looking at the putrid mess.

"Ugh! Whafuck!?"

"Yeah," Leon sounded hoarse and tired, "Yeah! Whafuck indeed."

Claire helped him up. She brushed some of the rot and stench off his face. He laughed a little, shrugging.

"How's the hot factor now?"

She studied him. "You just killed a giant mutant gator. The hot factor is pretty high."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah…give me some gum too."

"Alright." He offered her another stick of the gum. She popped it in her mouth.

"I'm gonna kiss you now."

"Over the romantic fire we're experiencing together?"

They looked at the burning gator and its exploded head. It wasn't a bonfire. It wasn't candles over a romantic table in Venice. But sometimes you took what you could get.

"Yep."

"Cool." He laughed and she grabbed his vest to pull him down.

It was a good kiss. Smooth and kinda sexy. As sexy as a kiss could get in a dirty old sewer across from a roasting dead monster. He grabbed a handful of that pert little ass of hers for good measure and she laughed, stepping back.

"Did you just grope me?"

"…no?"

"I liked it." She moved back toward the other tunnel, "Come on, hero cop. Let's find Sherry."

This girl, Leon speculated with a smirk, grabbing him and kissing him all over Raccoon City. He had never, in the whole of his twenty years, had a woman always grabbing him and laughing and kissing him. Zombies and killer crocs aside, he was actually enjoying the shit out of her company. Which made no sense at all given the state of their current situation.

They moved quickly through the other tunnel. There was a door to one side that opened to a steel staircase. Leon, holding his pistol, went first up the steps. Claire covered their rear.

Although he would have liked to have covered her rear. But that had no chance of happening in a dirty sewer in the middle of a dirty wasteland….or maybe it did. She was a feisty thing. She'd probably let him grope her again if he wanted.

He shifted, focusing his attention on the thing they were doing and not on the feeling of thrusting himself between her toned thighs. He was betting she was a screamer. Jesus. That was it. He was hard. Stupid man, his brain admonished him, what good does this do ANYONE? So now you're ready to ride and what? You gonna throw her down on the floor next to a flaming crocodile and stuff her full of your police issue pistol?

He was simultaneously turned on and amused with himself. She wouldn't let him do that. He was ALMOST sure of that. She wasn't that kind of gi—

She brushed her hand over his ass as he started to open the door at the top of the stairs. He blinked. Accidental? He rolled his head over his shoulder.

Her face said: Nope. Not accidental.

This girl. He'd never met anyone like her.

He figured…what the fuck. And turned back to her.

Claire blinked. There was never a more inappropriate time for that look on his face. But what the hell right? They could be dead in the next ten minutes.

He pushed her against the wall and she grabbed his face. There was a lot of tongue and a ton of groping now, she thought wildly. He got his hands into the top of her little shorts and rewarded himself with handfuls of that perfect little butt of hers. She couldn't get anywhere on him that wasn't tucked or locked down or strapped. Fucking uniform, she thought desperately, what a piece of shit.

She settled for rubbing at him over his clothes.

So there they were, in a dirty stairwell, probably fixing to be dead soon. And they were sucking a lot of face and grabbing each other's asses like horny teenagers. Which they kinda were. So it was probably ok.

He was a good kisser, Claire thought objectively, lots of tongue and teeth. It was just the right amount of suck and fuck with that tongue too. Hot cop was a helluva kisser.

Leon drew back from her, laughing and kinda desperate. "Holy shit."

"Right? Timing could NOT be worse here." She rubbed her swollen mouth. "I'm moving you from KINDA hot to just hot by the way."

"A compliment of the highest water, for sure. Holy moly. You kiss your brother with that mouth?"

"Not like that, handsome."

"Sheesh. How am I supposed to focus on killing zombies now?"

"Oh. I have the answer for that actually."

"Yeah?"

"You gotta refocus your brain."

"Yeah? How?"

"Like this." And then? She grabbed his zipper on his pants and jerked it down. Surely she was not serious here. But she totally was. Clearly. And, well, then that little red haired siren stuck her hand down into his pants and wrapped her fingers around him.

She pushed him against the wall of the stairwell and didn't just kill him. She killed him and made him love it. She jerked at his body and he was pretty sure his brain fell out of his ass. He grabbed her arms and dropped his gun in the process. But that was ok. She had his gun in her fist and was pumping it like a pro. So he was just fine.

She milked him fast and hard. He thought, holy shit this might be the best and worst night of his entire life, and she tugged just the right way. That was it. He was done. He grunted, she kept him against the wall with a hand on his collarbone and the other in his pants, and he went in her little hand. He blew his load all over that pumping fist like he was fifteen and his parents might walk in at any minute to catch him.

Claire chuckled and let him go. She wiped her sticky hand on his uniform and zipped him up. And then she kissed him. Totally wet, totally wild, it was almost as good as the shivers of orgasm that were still shooting down his poor body. This girl. This GIRL. She was the most amazing chic he'd ever met.

"Better?"

And he started laughing. He laughed until he was weak from it. She grinned and hugged him. What a day this was, he thought. Zombies and mutant dogs and killer crocs. Viruses and explosions and flopping hungry poops. And, of course, hot girls with missing brothers putting their hands in his pants. He could imagine the old man's face when he regaled him stories of his own day on the RPD.

Gathering his shit together, Leon followed her out of the door of the stairwell.

Sherry was waiting for them there. Terrified, the little girl was already racing away toward the far side of the platform on which they found themselves. It was a big platform with what looked to be some kind of train car? Or something on it.

The cool night breeze was better here. It took away the stench of the sewer they'd left behind. Leon and Claire were just standing there and enjoying the freedom from the stench of rot and decay. Sherry was digging around in the little hanger across from them.

Claire moved toward her, slowly, "Sherry? Wait. Wait. Don't run. Tell me how to help you."

"He's coming!" Cried the little girl as she dug through boxes on the ground, "We need the key to the lift. We have to get this thing moving, Claire. I put the key over here somewhere. Help me look!"

Leon and Claire spread out the help her look. There was plenty to see in the little hanger on the platform they were on. There were tools hung on walls and the floor was littered with boxes filled with Umbrella paraphernalia. Hats and mugs and coasters were stuffed three deep in the cardboard shells and poked under tables covered in papers and folders.

Leon picked up one folder to scan the contents. It was a list of experiments that had been going on. It was a detailed description of subject A-004 V. Grimes. V. Grimes was apparently injected with the virus at approximately 0600 in the morning. He mutated less than three hours later and showed significant signs of aggression less than fourteen minutes after mutation. During the canonical initial phase of the mutation, the virus was shown to exhibit increased capacity for function in the physical manifestation. Meaning, of course, that one was stronger, faster, and more capable. The initial phases of testing showed that the G-variant was superior to the T-virus in terms of complete and total transformation in the host.

Leon said, quietly, "What the fuck were they testing here?"

Claire glanced up, "Eh?"

He turned to Sherry, "What did your parents do here, Sherry?"

"They were scientists. They worked in the lab. They were making…monsters."

Claire glanced at Leon's face. He folded the report in his hands and tucked it into his vest for safe keeping. And then he added, "You find anything, anything at all that can put a nail in the coffin of what is happening in this town…keep it. We'll get it to the right people when we get the hell out of here."

Claire nodded and they went back to searching for the key to the lift.

Claire was elbow deep in a box of crap when they heard it. The roaring. They heard it and they turned, too slow. Something that had once, possibly, been a man exploded out of the tunnel where they'd been. It had blonde hair, kinda, on a head that was tilted to the side and adjacent to the biggest eyeball ever witnessed in the known world. The eye was as wide as a ruler and blinking and gross in the chest and shoulder of the thing that was advancing on them carrying a HUGE piece of pipe that squealed with a metallic sound as it dragged it over the platform. Muscle and bone showed wetly through the ragged, torn flesh and the disheveled rags of clothing on its mostly horrifying form were barely covering anything up. It was ten feet tall, if it was an inch, and it had arms thick and roped with muscle that looked vaguely like they could crush and man while he screamed.

Sherry screamed and ran to hide. And the thing lifted its head and roared her name.

Leon pulled the Magnum and aimed at the eyeball. The heavy round was loud and cacophonous in the quiet hanger. It echoed and hurt the ears. The eyeball rolled, sending a streaming of steaming blood up in a geyser as it struck.

The monster roared its anger and rushed him. Leon ran for it, circling out of the hanger and around behind the lift car they were trying so desperately to get into. He grabbed the handle and found it open after all.

So he ran inside.

In hindsight, sequestering himself inside of a large metal coffin to await his death was probably a bad idea. But it made a strange sort of sense at the time. The monster couldn't get in after all so he was kind of safe.

He could hear Claire firing on the thing. Leon started digging around in the car looking for the key. It was there, lying on the control panel near the front. He snatched it up and leapt out of the car.

And the thing smashed one huge arm right into his chest.

As a child, Leon Kennedy had been kicked once a horse. It had reared up and bucked him. Boom. It had shattered his collarbone and sent him flying. It had hurt like nothing he'd ever known. This? This was ten times worse.

He collapsed around the pain as he was thrown up and out. He hit the edge of the platform and just kept going. He went right off the side and plummeted down into the naked darkness.

Claire screamed, running toward where he'd fallen. The thing threw the pipe at her. She ducked, felt the world shift and roll inches above her head, and the pipe struck the wall of the hanger with a shrieking squeal of steel. Claire reloaded her weapon, tracking the monster.

"You ugly fuck! I'm going to enjoy watching you bleed to death!"

She unloaded into the eye, shouting as it ran at her. She kept on firing, firing and she didn't run. She stood her ground. It raced, she saw her death on its face, and then it stopped tilting its head like a dog.

It turned and ran the other way. It leapt, leapt, and disappeared over the edge of the platform spilling blood from all the bullets it had taken. All the bullets it didn't care about it.

Claire whispered, into the quiet night, "Holy shit."

And she ran, ran, and slid across the platform to where the hero cop had gone. He was there! He was there dangling twenty feet down off a jagged edge.

"OH MY GOD!"

"Claire! I could use some help here!"

"Hold on!"

Claire ran into the hanger and found a length of 550 cord in a box beneath the table. She ran to the edge of the platform, tossed the end over, and tied the other end to the lift car. She listened and watched, as the hot rookie cop started pulling himself up.

"Are you ok, Leon?"

"Well…I've been better! I started out getting dumped. I was late for work and got attacked by zombies in the street. I've been slapped around, thrown around, knocked down and covered in bugs. I'm filthy, tired, scared as piss and still figure I've got a long way to go before I get to grab a magazine and potentially spend a half an hour dropping a deuce…so I've been better. In a caveat to that? I could be dead instead. So I'm actually doing ok."

Claire grabbed his uniform and drug him up on the platform with her.

She laughed a little and helped him to his feet. "I'm pretty sure this is the worst night of my life."

Claire wiped some dirt off his face. He turned his eyes to her. And she said, "I've had worse nights. And HELLA worst company."

And now he chuckled, digging on her. "The company is good. In other news, this might be the best date I've ever been on."

Claire chuckled and kissed him, hard, on the mouth. "Same."

Leon lifted his hand and showed her the key there, "Who's the coolest guy you know?"

"You are a god amongst men, Leon Kennedy. Seriously." She turned back to the hangar, "Sherry? Come out honey. The monster is gone and we've got the key."

Sherry hurried out of the hangar. She nodded and leapt into the car. Leon went to the control panel, put the key in, and hit the button to activate the lift. Lights swirled and a warning gong started. They leapt on board and Claire went to the front to turn the lever to take them down further into the worst night of their lives.

There was a grind of turning gears and the floor opened beneath them. The lift made a whirring sound and they started a controlled descent down into the darkness. Sherry was curled in a seat, staring wide eyed at them.

Claire knelt and touched her face. "Are you ok?"

"That was my daddy."

Claire blinked at her. "What?"

"That monster is my daddy. It's him. He wants me. I don't know why. I don't want him to find me."

"I won't let him take you. I promise."

Leon was studying the conductors logs as the lift took them deeper into the nightmare of what waited beneath the necropolis that had once been Raccoon City. How deep was the conspiracy here, he speculated, how far down the rabbit hole would they go to find the answers? Was there any way out of this that didn't end with them dead or silenced by the flashing end of a muzzle or the snarling end of a monster?

He just didn't know.

He turned to say something snarky and there was a loud boom. It shook the car as something landed on top of the roof. Sherry squealed.

Claire grabbed her to protect her and the ceiling ripped back. It was torn open with a sparking squeal like a can opener. And the monster from the platform speared one nasty arm straight through the opening it made.

Leon fired into the opening. The heavy round hit it right in the rolling, bleeding eyeball. It roared and reared back to rip the roof clean off. Leon fired again, the last of his heavy magnum rounds. It struck Birkin as he reared and the force of it, the momentum of the lift, and his own weight was enough to knock it clear. He blasted it with his pistol as it shot off into the darkness.

But before it went. It thrust that long, awful arm into the compartment one more time. It missed Claire by inches, by a breath, and drove that long talon right into its own daughter. It caught Sherry in the shoulder and speared her to the wall of the lift.

"NO!" Claire shouted it and Leon put two more shots in that rolling, ugly eye.

Birkin was ripped clear and tossed into the darkness, roaring.

Sherry collapsed to the floor, bleeding and crying. The lift came to a slow and steady stop on the ground floor of their final destination with a bleep and gong of arrival. Leon holstered his pistol and picked up the girl in his arms.

Claire covered them as they moved out of the car. There was a first aid office to the right that they moved quickly toward. Two other doors awaited their attention but Sherry was in trouble. She needed attention, right then.

In the small aid station, Claire was treating the wound in her shoulder. Sherry gasped and shivered. She was crying but surprisingly calm for such a little girl. "I'm going to die."

Claire shook her head, shook it again, "No. We'll get you out of here."

"He infected me. I'm going to die."

Claire met her eyes. "There's a vaccine. Right? There has to be a vaccine."

"Maybe. But I don't know where."

"I will find it, honey. I will. Just stay here and sleep." Claire stripped off her vest and the little girl put it on, smiling now. "Look at you. Now you're a tough girl."

"Just like you?"

"Yeah. Just like me."

Sherry laid down on the cot and closed her eyes. Claire turned back to Leon in that tight black shirt. Objectively, he thought, it was a nice rack. Without the vest, you could see just how nice. She was busty, was Claire Redfield.

His brain said, totally irrelevant to the situation hero. Focus. And stop booby watching.

Claire stepped up beside him. "We need to find the vaccine."

"If there is one? We'll find it. You're ok leaving her?"

"She's safer here I think. Let's lock the door as we go."

Claire took the keys to the room and pocketed them. They locked the door as they left. In the main area again, which was cool and actually felt refreshing, there was two options. A door to her right and another to the left.

She turned to Leon. He was watching her boobs in that top. She coughed and his attention came up.

"Yo. Yeah. What's up?"

"Focus, handsome. There's time for that later. Left or right?"

Leon tossed a coin to decide for them. "Left it is!"

"Awesome. Let's hurry."

They went through the left door and came out in a hallway. They moved down it together. Claire turned her head a little to watch him. She liked how he kept looking at her. Like she was sexy and irresistible.

Her brain said: well, you did have your hand in his pants earlier.

That was true. But that had been to help him refocus. Oh yeah, her mind giggled, you often stick your hands in guy's pants to help them focus? Maybe you stuff your hand down your professor's pants next time you see him to get him to teach better. Maybe you stick your hand around your mechanic's dick when he's fixing your bike.

Claire chuckled at herself. Ok, so maybe it was different. She was into the cop. Clearly. He was funny and kinda dory and…he bent down look in a vent beside them. And he had the HOTTEST ass she'd ever seen on a cop. And she'd been hanging around cops for years.

"Anything in there?"

"No. But I can hear something ya know? I wish I could figure out where the sound is coming from."

Claire moved to the end of the hallway. And she heard the shouting.

Leon came running and they watched as two women faced each other. One was Ada Wong, in that stupid little dress, the other was a blonde woman with a crazy expression on her face.

"You won't get it! YOU BITCH!"

Ada was waving her hands. "Ease down! I don't even know what "it" is!"

"You liar! You fake! It's mine! And William's!"

The roar of the eyeball monster was loud now. It was coming. It was coming from somewhere close by, clearly. The woman with the gun waved it around and Leon shoved Claire against the wall and shook his head at her.

Ada said, "I'm just here to find my boyfriend."

"Liar! SPY! You won't get it!" And the gun went off.

Later, Claire would think the situation was a disaster but could have been avoided with a little finesse of some kind from Ada Wong. But clearly she didn't care about that.

She also wasn't shot.

The sound of retreating footsteps was loud and echoing.

And there was Leon, face down on Ada Wong on the floor. So she wasn't shot. But he was.

Claire shouted and ran to pull him off the other woman. "IDIOT! Why!?"

His uniform was ragged and ripped at the arm pit. He was bleeding, rather badly. She slapped a hand over it as Ada Wong ran away.

"BITCH!" Claire shouted.

She heard Ada call back, "I'm sorry! I am SO sorry. But I have to go after that woman!"

Claire looped his arm around her shoulders and hefted him to his feet. He grunted, wavering on his feet. "Come on handsome. Come on. Over here." She led him to the door closest to them and opened it to find a small office.

She shut the door, gently, and locked it. Taking care not to hurt him more, she helped him to the desk and set him on it easily. He groaned.

"I'm sorry. Let's get this off you."

She helped him out of his vest and shirt. In his undershirt, she could see the ragged hole in his body. It was bloody but straight through the skin beside his armpit. It was ugly but shallow. Claire moved around and found a lab coat still in the package in a drawer. She ripped it into strips and moved back to dress his wound.

"Here, hold pressure ok?" He did while she hunted up a bottle of hemostatic medicine in a cabinet by the wall and some pain killers. She brought back a bottle of water with it. She dressed and bound him, silent and sympathetic.

He watched her face, a little woozy.

She asked, "Better?"

And his voice was quiet, "Better."

"Why?"

"I'm a cop right? It's what we do."

She cupped his face, gently, "I don't think you're a cop anymore. Not really. Do you?"

"I am. Until you're safe. Until that little girl is safe. I'm still a cop, Claire. I'll protect you."

"….you noble fool. We'll protect each other." A different kiss this time. She stepped between his legs while he sat there with a hand pressed to his bullet wound.

His other hand cupped her butt to drag her against his body. She held his face and really laid one on him. He was woozy, hell yeah, but he was also dizzy from her. She was something else.

She might have gone on kissing him. But the roaring filled the room around them. They drew apart, watching each other.

She said, "You stay here. I'm going to go look for the vaccine."

"What? I'm not waiting here! Are you insane?"

He was slipping on his uniform top and clipping on his vest. "Leon, you can't go on. Go back with Sherry. I'll be ok."

"Don't be stupid, Claire. I'm not just going to let you go out there and fight that thing alone. No way."

She watched his face. He lifted his brows. "I'm fine. The bleeding can be controlled with the hemostat. The painkiller will kick in soon enough. I'm fine. Seriously. Come on."

He opened the door to the office and glanced up and down the hallway. Satisfied that it was clear, they stepped out together. He followed the trail of Ada Wong down the hallway where she'd run. They came around the corner and started toward the walkway on the other side.

The walkway spread over what was clearly the boiler room. There was the plop, pop, fizz and steady roar of rushing lava beneath them. It was three thousand degrees in the room. The world wavered and rolled like only good humidity and heat can produce.

They were halfway across the walkway to the room waiting there and the trenchcoat man stepped out in front of them.

"Holy shit," Said Claire, "Holy holy shit."

"Right. Fucking right." Leon rolled his neck and shoulders. It hurt his bad arm. But they were on a narrow walkway over boiling lava now. So it wasn't like they could just have a showdown.

"What now?"

"Run?"

"Where?!"

"Good point."

But they had to run anyway because trenchcoat mofo was raising across the walkway toward them. Claire shouted in response and Leon might have too. Maybe. But it was probably really masculine and tough sounding.

He was pretty sure he sounded like Stallone, all harsh and macho. Pretty sure.

Mofo chased them over the walkway while they scrambled away like terrified toddlers. They hit the far side and tried to go back through the door they'd come through. Nope.

NOPE.

Locked.

Leon hit the door with his shoulder and hissed with pain.

"Oh my god…" Claire turned back to face the thing rushing at them. She looked over the railing beside them. And she jumped over.

Leon grabbed for her and she was already climbing down the iron railing like a ladder. OH, he thought, impressed, oh yeah. That worked too.

He followed her down, feeling the roiling, boiling heat that washed over them. They dropped to the narrow and tiny platform below them next to the worlds biggest compressor. Mofo jumped after them and they were shouting and running again.

And then Mofo grabbed Claire around the throat. She gasped, kicking her legs. Leon stopped running, reversed, and had a very Leon Kennedy moment.

Later, as he got older, he'd look back on this moment as the one that defined him as a hero. Really. It totally was. It was his moment.

He rushed Mofo like a hero. He bumrushed that big bastard to save the girl. It's what he did. Yep. No hesitation.

Ok. A little hesitation. He was muttering whafuck over and over again as he did it. But he did it. So that was saying something.

Mofo dropped Claire and grabbed him instead. He lifted him to eye level and started squeezing. It was a bit like what he imagined it felt like to be squished in a trash compacter. He could feel the bones and blood and muscles in his body compressing like it was nothing.

And he was totally shouting now. It was not in the LEAST bit masculine. It was more like a girl who sees a spider and freaks out. But he was probably dying. So he got to scream like a girl.

And Claire grabbed the wrist of Mofo, kicked her feet against his leg, and climbed up him. It was impressive. It was pretty fucking impressive. She drove her knife right into his face while he tried to shake her off like a bug and crush Leon at the same time. She drove it right into his face screaming like a Valkyrie.

She ripped the blade out in a spray of blood and drove it into his face again. He had had enough of her, clearly. He chuckled Leon away like an angry baby with an unwanted piece of food. Leon flipped end over end and smashed into the wall. He slid to the floor, skidding, and managed to NOT fall in the lava. Which was a miracle. But he swallowed his gum so that totally sucked shit.

He staggered to his feet and Claire was being shaken like a maraca. Leon ran. Again, later, he'd think back on how he was always running. But he ran like the wind now. And he leapt. He leapt up and climbed up the back of that nasty monster. He grappled as Mofo tried to shake him loose and put the pistol in his hand to the back of that nasty head.

He pulled the trigger until it dry fired and Mofo? Well he staggered, toppled, and tried to take them both into the lava with him as he went sideways and went down. He sank in the thick burning liquid like it was quicksand.

Leon and Claire watched him sink until his ugly trenchcoat was completely gone.

And Claire realized that the hot cop had stepped, just slightly, in front of her.

Touched, she kissed his sweaty cheek.

"Come on, handsome! Hurry!"

They climbed to the top of the iron walkway. Claire helped him up and noticed he was very pale. She pressed a hand to his wound and held his eyes.

"Thank you."

Leon scoffed. "I didn't do anything we haven't been doing all night."

"You're kind of a hero, aren't you?"

"I don't even know what that means."

"It means you keep trying to sacrifice yourself for others. It's a bad habit, Leon Kennedy. You get to trying to save the world it won't ever stop."

"Savior complex. My curse on the world."

Claire helped him through the door and out of the intense heat. The good news? It looked like they were in the lab. The bad news? They weren't alone.

They were staring down the barrel Ada Wong's very big, very shiny gun.


	4. Chapter 4

IV. Whafuck? And who is the guy with the eyeball?

AUT NECA AUT NECARE

"Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep."  
― Clive Barker, Days of Magic, Nights of War

:::::::::::::::::::::::::FOUR::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Ada!" Yelled Claire, staring into that witchy face, "You ARE a bad guy!"

Ada laughed and shrugged a little, "So maybe I'm a bad guy. So what? I'm still hot. How you doin handsome?" She winked at Leon.

He kinda grinned at her.

Claire elbowed him in the belly and he grunted.

Ada added, "Go back the way you came and get outta here. I'm busy."

"No way! We need the vaccine."

"No. Beat it!"

Leon said, quietly, "So instead of killing each other and screaming and bringing lots of undead or big nasty monsters with eyeballs, why don't we reach a nice solution we can both live with?"

Ada studied them, considering, "Ok. Get the vaccine. Hurry up. But if I see you again before this is over? I'm going to turn you both into swiss cheese."

Claire leaned Leon against the wall and hurried to the machine on the wall. She followed the directions and clicked buttons. She read the instructions and muttered under her breath.

Leon, woozy, and tired almost fell over. Ada grabbed him to hold him steady.

He looked at her face. "Why are you bad?"

"It's my thing I guess. Why are you good?"

"Because being bad is for cowards."

That registered. She nodded a little. And Claire came back toward them. Ada stepped away from them and Claire put Leon's arm over her shoulder.

"If I see you again," Ada warned, "Deadsville. Remember."

They hurried back toward the room with Sherry. At the end of the walkway, they came through the door that had been previously locked. It was open now and the path was clear to the first aid station.

Inside the room, Leon locked the door and Claire ran over to give Sherry the vaccine. Leon staggered and sat down in the big chair that was there. The relief of the pressure off his body was incredible. He leaned his head against the wall while the world swam.

He was pretty hurt. Pretty badly hurt. He could feel the aches and the pains and the stabbing and the throbbing that was his body. The longest night of his life, he thought reflectively, was taking its toll on him. He figured it was a good damn thing he was twenty and not forty. He couldn't even imagine being that old and trying to go up against this kind of shit.

Claire was speaking, softly, "She's resting. Now we can just wait I guess and see. I hope we were fast enough."

She turned back and stopped. He was sleeping. He was just sleeping against the wall. Claire moved over toward him. She sat down at his feet and turned her head against his legs. And she rested.

It might have been an hour, it might have been forever but it felt good to sleep. She awoke and he was watching her. She shifted, glanced at Sherry, who was peacefully sleeping. It seemed to be working. The little girl was snoring and her cheeks weren't pink anymore.

Leon shifted in his seat, "How long should we wait to wake her and get moving here?"

Claire rose to her feet. "We should probably get moving. Time waits for no man…or something like that."

"Yeah." He tugged her hand anyway. She went, spilling across his lap. He made a sound like a grunt or a gasp and kissed her. Softer, smoother, wetter it was a kiss that didn't fire the blood, it cooled it. It sent it sluggishly swirling through the veins to leave one breathless and burdened with a need to find out what waited on the other side of it.

They didn't care that the other was filthy, sweaty, or seemingly wounded. They didn't care about anything but finding the flavor of each other beneath that first real moment of peace and softness that they'd had in the longest night of ugly terror. It was a good moment, in a way, it was the moment she stopped being "that girl" and he stopped being "hot cop" and they just became Claire and Leon.

They stopped kissing long enough to look at each other from inches away. He said, "I'm glad I was late for work."

She whispered, "I'm glad my brother didn't call me."

"Shit, me too."

And they laughed a little.

Sherry was stirring on the bed. She sat up, watching them. "I'm ok?"

"You're ok." With a sliver of regret, Claire rose off his lap and moved toward the little girl, "You ready to get out of here?"

"Yes! Let's hurry. He will find us soon if we don't."

They kept moving, just like that. The run from the aid station through the other door found them racing through hallways filled with undead. It was easy to fight the zombies. They were stupid and slow and simple. They burst out onto a platform and there was the train that waited.

The train.

And a very loud voice came over the speakers around them and scared the living piss out of all three of them.

"WARNING! THE SELF DESTRUCT SYSTEM HAS BEEN ACTIVATED! TIME TO DETONATION IS TEN MINUTES! PLEASE EVACUATE ALL PERSONEL IMMEDIATELY! WARNING! THE SELF DESTRUCT SYSYTEM HAS BEEN ACTIVATED!"

It continued, over and over. It was loud and followed by a screeching, wailing siren.

Sherry covered her ears.

Leon was already running for the control box beside the train car. He started slapping buttons and the lights came on inside it. The track lit up.

Claire put Sherry in the train car.

And the world exploded in blood and death.

What had once been William Birkin leapt down from the top of the train car and slapped her. He hit her so hard that she was instantly unconscious. He threw her up and out and she landed, motionless, on the train tracks.

Someone was roaring. Birkin?

Nope, Leon thought, it was him. He was roaring. And he was rushing for a ten foot monster with nothing but a pistol and rage.

He ducked as Birkin swung over his head. He came up swinging. He was punching. Punching a fucking monster. Who tried to fist fight monsters? What kind of pseudo hero channeled all their rage into their fists? (….cough).

They collided, the boy and the monster. They met in the middle of the platform and smashed together in a proverbial battle for the soul. Leon pulled the trigger on it until the pistol dry fired and he threw it away. He climbed when that failed, feeling the slap and scrape and stab of wounds to his body as he fought his way up to that eyeball. And then? Well he punched that eyeball shouting like a madman until his arm went numb from it.

And Birkin? He grabbed him, shook him like a dog, and threw him away. Leon hit the train car, felt the blow of it in his bones, and slid down gasping and coughing. He looked up and saw the moment he would die.

It was written there on that mutated face. It drove that talon toward him and he heard it hit. He heard it tear flash and listened to the gasp of pain. And Ada Wong was standing in front of him, impaled on that terrible arm.

She gasped, twitched, and slumped, spitted on that claw. Terrified, Leon grabbed her and jerked her clean of it. She fell to the ground and pointed.

And there it was.

In all of his life, Leon Kennedy had never even SEEN a rocket propelled grenade. But there it was. RPG city. He picked it up and hefted the weight of it.

From the train car, Sherry cried, "HURRY!"

And Leon put that heavy bastard to his shoulder and shouted, "GAME OVER!"

It wasn't Eastwood good but it would do. He fired the RPG with grunt as the big artillery put him on his ass. The heavy grenade smashed into Birkin, Birkin roared like monster about to be blown up, and he was reduced to flying chunks, smoking thunks, and splattered mess. He splatted a perfect star of blood and black burnt crap on the wall behind him. The rain of crap and gross shit fell down on them where they sat or lay or ached.

He turned Ada Wong over to look at her face. She was pale and trembling. She said, softly, "Hurry. Get out of here."

"I can go back and get you the vaccine. Just hold on!"

"No time. And this is where the dance stops for me anyway. See ya, handsome…" And she died. She just stopped breathing.

Terrified, he shook her and finally set her down.

"WARNING! THE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED! TIME UNTIL DETONATION IS NOW 4 MINUTES!"

"Holy SHIT!" He dropped Ada to the platform and ran for the tracks. Claire was very still there. Leaping down, he ran toward her and hefted her in his arms. He carried her to the train car, Sherry helped pull her in, and he leapt in after them.

He hit the lever to shoot them off toward the exit. The train burped and leapt forward, speeding like a bullet toward their escape. They cleared the tunnel and rocketed out into the dawning day.

The moment they cleared the tunnel, explosion rocked the world. It was loud, it was too close, it was too awful. It chased the train down the rickety track like a whomp of pressure and pain.

He turned and Claire was awake, watching him in the rising sun.

The moment the train burst free of the tunnel, sunlight had started to break through the cloudy sky. It was morning. Morning had fallen after the longest night. The night that knew no end. The night that would haunt them forever.

The girl and the boy on the train watched the sun rise, gold and orange. It was a beautiful thing: a promise when there'd been no hope. Bleeding, dirty, tired, hungry and afraid, they'd finally fled the necropolis that had tried to destroy them. They'd uncovered horrors and conspiracy, they'd fought the darkness and survived. And they'd done it together.

On a blanket, the little girl they'd rescued snored softly. She was filthy and small and sweet. And sound asleep. They'd saved her and it was their greatest victory.

Leon Kennedy guided the train to safety and the sun reflected brilliant in the husky blue of his eyes. The dirt on his face defined it and made it seem older than it had twenty four hours before. He couldn't figure out why anything as mundane going back to normal life scared him so much. He only knew that tonight, when the sun set, he'd have to sleep alone. The idea terrified him.

Claire Redfield stood beside him. She was splattered in old blood and had a bruise on her face that was already turning yellow. Her red hair was sticking up in places and she had the faint odor of acrid smoke about her from the fire they'd traversed together.

Leon set the autopilot on the train and ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his face. It was sticky and itchy with dried blood and sweat. It peeled back like the layer of an onion and settled against his scalp, leaving his handsome face unadorned.

She turned toward him and smiled. "Helluva night, handsome."

"Helluva night." He smiled back and rolled his shoulders.

Claire grinned at him, "I couldn't have done it without you. You saved my life back there against that thing."

Birkin. The image of his mutated form would haunt them both forever.

"Ditto. I thought I was a goner against that ugly mofo with the trenchcoat."

"Mofo…what a name."

"It seemed to fit."

"It fits for sure."

Claire coughed a little as the silence drew out between them. "What now?"

Leon shrugged, at a loss. "Honestly? I think we get the information we have to the right people and let them handle it."

"Who's the right people though?"

"Good question."

She turned toward him. "Leon…"

He tilted his head, studying her. The sun flickered over her face, showing him the girl beneath the dirt. She was something. A fighter, a survivor. She had the bravery of a hundred men and the humor of a frat buddy. He only knew one thing about her: he wanted her in his life.

She took his hand and turned it. They slid those hands together and held.

She knew she could tug him in toward her and kiss him. She knew he'd kiss her back. She knew once they did, they'd probably never stop kissing. And she didn't have time for romance.

She had to find her brother.

And yet…they'd almost died. And him? He'd fucking saved her life. Hot cop, she thought, be mine.

He turned, she turned, and the two of them slid together. The rockety tremble of the train around them spilled their mouths together. She grabbed his wrists, he grabbed her face. They kissed wet and wild and endless.

Tongues and teeth and taking. She pushed him into the conductor's office and closed the door. Sherry was sleeping so quietly out there. They had to be quiet.

They had to be…something.

She jerked at his vest. He grabbed at her shorts. Oh, she thought, they were going to do this. They were totally going to bone on a train fleeing the grossest night of their lives.

Cool.

She laughed a little, desperately. The office was cramped and small. The timing was all wrong for any of this. But they were ALIVE. And the adrenaline was pumping like madness between them.

She got the vest off of him and ripped open his uniform top. Buttons exploded and made him laugh until he shoved her shorts down her legs. They hooked on her boots and nobody cared. He put a hand under her tight little t-shirt, filled his palm with her breast and the train cornered.

It threw them sideways and they rolled across the floor with it. Laughing, Claire jerked open his pants. He shoved her panties down her thighs to the knees. It was crude and awful and amazing! She'd never had a guy that just was desperate for her. He was all kinds of hands and teeth and fumbling. And she loved it!

He grunted when she grabbed his bad shoulder but kept on going. She barely got her legs open and he shifted her, lifted her, and thrust into her body so hard it made them both insane. She screamed and he caught it with his mouth. Yep, he was right, she was a screamer. The rock and rock and roll of the train added to the excitement of the desperate ride and fuck of it all. She slapped and humped and he pumped into her so fast and needy that it was kinda like he was trying to come out the other side of her.

Somebody was grunting and somebody was gasping and somebody was coming. It was probably her or him or both of them. They speared tongues and he crammed her full of his cock and it was…essentially the best night of his life. Yeah, objectively, it was the best night EVER.

And then she screamed, she screamed, right into his mouth as he came around him, humping so hard as he gave it to her that he was pretty sure they'd both be bruised. Yep, best night EVER. And the hero cop who'd started out drunk and tired and late, well, he'd saved the day, escaped the burning city, and got the girl. So he went ahead and filled her up while he grunted and grabbed at those perfect boobs he'd been eyeing.

Yep yep yep. BEST NIGHT EVER.

They laid together for a long moment afterward, gasping and groaning. The after shocks were awesome. And the rocking train was the icing on the cake of fantastic, frenzied, and sort of filthy fucking that had happened here.

Leon lifted his head. "Whafuck?"

And Claire laughed so hard she thought she'd die. "Sounds about right dude. Best night ever?"

"Best night ever. Hands down."

"I need to find Chris."

"I will totally help you."

"Yeah?"

"I'm balls deep in you. So I'm thinking that's the gentlemanly thing to do."

"That is correct. It is. You want to be best friends?"

"…that's a yes on the best friends."

"Sweet."

And they kept on holding on to each other even after they dressed and waited for the train to take them to safety.

…

Swinging Pines 1998

"Holy moly!" Claire Redfield shouted where was curled naked and perfect on the bed of the motel they were in. Her red hair was wet and wild down her back.

Leon Kennedy, naked and utterly adorable, came out of the bathroom. "Sup?"

"I found my brother!"

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah baby. Look!" It was a picture of the Louvre.

Leon twisted his mouth. He twisted it back. It had been three months since Raccoon City had been blown to smithereens and left a crater where the monsters had been. They'd both been searching for Chris without much luck.

Leon was working for a company called USSTRATCOM which was basically a very boring network of nerds and spies that killed stuff, blew stuff up, and did a shit ton of paperwork. Claire was living off his enormous paychecks and doing nothing. They were hotel surfing because neither of them wanted to bother to settle down anyway. So they were penthouse players, enjoying the comfort of room service and turn down maids while they fucked like bunnies and searched for Chris.

"He decided to go to Paris and check out the museums?"

"What?" Claire glanced up at him.

"All the places in all the world and he picked Paris? It smells there Claire. And you get robbed A LOT. Why would he go there? What's in the louvre?"

"….he's not in the Louvre, Leon. He's taking down an Umbrella Facility there."

Leon coughed. "I knew what you meant."

"Hmm."

"You want me to take you to Paris?"

Claire looked at him. Working for the nerds in the government had made the hot cop in Raccoon City into a hot agent. All muscled and yummy, Leon remained the sexiest thing she'd ever seen with a penis. She threw aside the sheets that were wrapped around her.

"Yeah I do. But first? Come take me."

"Yeah. Yep. Let's do that."

He fell on her ravenous and desperate. She rolled and put him on the bottom. The bed was squeaking and bouncing while she rode him, fast, hard and grunting. Always the screamer, she was shouting while her perfect little boobs bounced. He filled his hands with them and let her try to fuck him blind.

…

Paris 1998

"In hindsight," Said Leon Kennedy, "It might NOT have been a good idea to come here with just a pistol."

And so they were now surrounded by men with very big guns.

The facility where they thought they'd find Chris? It was filled with guys alright and NONE of them were Chris Redfield. They were, however, Umbrella mercenaries and pretty determined to kill them both. Lots of bullets and exploding glass, screaming, running and falling down later had found them face to face with about thirty five dudes with AK's and assault rifles.

Claire answered, "True. Probably could have planned this a little better."

"Yep. I thought we'd find lab geeks and nerds."

"Same."

"We may want to rethink our plans in the future."

"Maybe. A little bit."

"I don't know about you but I am NEVER going into this kind of thing again with a handgun and no backup." (…cough)

"SAME. What kind of idiot does that? We are SO stupid sometimes."

"Seemed like the right idea at the time though."

"Yep."

Across the room, someone shouted, "DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"

Leon dropped it. Claire dropped it and then? Well she dropped too, grabbed it in mid drop, and shot the barrels behind the bunch of dudes. FLAMMABLE said the barrels. Leon thought…I'll be a monkey's uncle what a GIRL!

And the fire exploded. The world went BOOM and exploded in a mess of metal and screaming people. They started to run and Leon got a clothesline to the face for the effort. Claire shot the guy who hit him but her gun clicked empty.

And the guy facing them said, "….game over."

As Leon passed out, he thought, well I've heard that somewhere before I think.

…

Rockfort Island 1998

The stench of filthy ass awakened him. He rolled to his back, staring at the ceiling. Beside him, Claire groaned. He glanced at her face but it was so fucking dark that it was impossible to see anything.

"You ok?" He queried and she gave him a thumbs up, "Cool."

They both sat up, shifting their sore bodies. Leon rubbed at his face with one hand. Claire made a sound like, "Oomphala."

"Is that a real thing?"

"I guess. Ugh I feel like I've been drinking all night."

"Right? Hang over city."

And they both looked over as a face flashed in the doorway of the cell they were in. Because it was a cell. A big fat prison cell. They were in prison.

….whafuck?

The cell door creaked as it was opened. And they looked into the face of the guy who'd kicked their asses and taken them prisoner. Leon said, "I'm gonna kick the shit out of you dude."

Claire grabbed his arm, "Wait. Leon, wait. He's already hurt."

And so he was. He was all bloody and holding his stomach. He dropped an empty bottle of hemostat on the floor and flopped in a chair by the desk. "Get out of here. Hurry. This place is capital F-fucked. Over run. Finished. Get the hell outta here."

Leon blinked as Claire reached into her pocket and struck up her zippo. Light spilled down around them in a flickering orange and yellow wash. The paper on the desk in front of the dying dude was a prisoner manifest. It mentioned first initials and last names. S. Addison, S. Burnside, , C. Redfield.

Leon remarked, "What the fuck? They spelled my name wrong!"

Claire looked at his face, "What?"

"They couldn't even spell my name right? What the hell man."

"….how is that even relevant right now?"

Leon shrugged, irritated. "Umbrella…too stupid to even spell my name right. Seriously."

Claire shook her head and turned back to their captor. "How do we get out of here?"

"My suggestion? Go toward the facility and try to get to the submarine. It's on the far side of the mansion where the overseer and the family lived. Good luck though. This place? OVER FUCKING RUN with monsters."

Leon snorted and shook his head, "Story of our lives, dude. Seriously."

Claire looked at the guy who was dying in the chair again, "We'll get you some medicine and come back."

Leon shook his head a little, "Speak for yourself. This guy cold cocked me."

The guy in the chair, Rodrigo Juan Raval, an Umbrella Operative who was considering quitting and becoming a dancer, sighed a little. "It was my job, man. It wasn't personal. I think dying should get me some atonement, at least right?"

"Sure. Why not?" Leon shrugged and went the stairs that led up and out of the prison. "You got a gun?"

"Yeah. Here." Raval handed it over. Leon took it and the extra ammo on the desk.

"Thanks dude. Sorry about the whole dying thing."

"No worries. Good luck."

Claire rose, hesitated and took the knife he offered her. She said, quietly, "I'll come back. Ok?"

"Don't. Just run."

They moved through the dark and up the stairs. It was pouring down rain when they stepped outside of the prison. It was some kind of graveyard that was adjacent to the stairs. Stone sarcophagi littered the ground beneath the smashing slap of rain.

They moved between the cement coffins and toward the far side of the graveyard. They didn't get far when the first zombie shambled out of the darkness at them. It was followed by three more.

"Shit." Said Leon Kennedy, yes KENNEDY was the correct spelling, and popped the first two between the eyes. The third one grabbed Claire and she shoved her knife into its eye.

She looked at him, he looked back at her and thunder rumbled so loud it made them both jump.

Claire said, "Piss and shit and fart and turd. Here we go again I guess."

"In other news, nobody I'd rather be outgunned, lost, cold and starving with than you hotstuff."

"Agreed….Mr. Kennedeed."

"….ugh. Mutha fucking UMBRELLA."

"We could certainly use one now in all this rain."

"Right? It's wet ass and soggy balls for me tonight apparently."

Claire chuckled and tugged him over to kiss him. He snorted and grabbed her butt.

"It's the hottest ass in this prison!" Claire declared as they made their way to the far gate that waited for them across a wide open courtyard.

Leon stopped, blinked, and looked around. "Probably best not to shout that in a prison, kid. I have a feeling it might get me trapped in the world's worst game of cornhole."

Claire laughed and started to say something cute and clever. And a bunch gun fire started raining down on them. It was coupled with a very, very bright spot light. They dove apart missing their own death by a few inches of luck and a ton of mud.

Of course they were still stranded, still out gunned, still starving and generally screwed.

But it was starting to feel like, just maybe, that was going to be the nature of their entire friendship.


	5. Chapter 5

Slainte.

….

V. I SAID I WAS SORRY! And why can't anyone spell on this island!?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::FIVE::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"STOP SHOOTING, YOU DUMB SHIT!" Yelled Leon Kennedy as he popped off a round at the crazy spot light blistering down on them.

The rotating gunfire came to a halt. And a small voice shouted, "OY! Who's down there?"

Claire shouted back, "Who's up there?"

There was a clunk, a thunk, and a plop of mud as the kid who'd been shooting at them dropped down. He grinned, flashing big white teeth in a skinny face. Handsome, seemingly, with red hair and big blue eyes. He winked at Claire, "How you doin, dollface? Name's Burnside. STEVE, Burnside."

Claire smiled, "Hi Steve. I'm Claire Redfield. This is Leon Kennedy."

"You mean Kennedeed?"

"Damnit! That was spelled wrong!" Shouted Leon.

"Sorry," Said the kid with the bad Boston accent, "Just tellin ya what was written. They call me Burnside because when I'm in…all your sides is burnin baby!" And he made a sizzle sound.

Claire blinked at him.

Leon said, "Are you seriously hitting on her right now?"

Steve considered this, "Yes?"

Claire said, "You're a cutie. But you're also like five years old."

"I'm seventeen!"

Leon snorted and moved toward the console where Steve had been standing. "You're twelve."

Steve sneered a little. Leon was clicking around on the console, trying to see what he could get to pop up regarding their location. He said, "Ok. The good news? I think I can possibly get a transmission out to alert your brother to where we are."

"Yeah?"

"Yup."

Steve Burnside said, "I'm not twelve. I'm seventeen. And who?"

"My brother," Remarked Claire happily, "If he's available, he'll come save us."

"Whoa," Leon said gently, "We do NOT need him to save us. BUT it would be a good idea to have some back up show up since there's a good chance this island will probably blow up at some point."

"Oh yeah," Claire agreed, "Do you want to go to the mansion that guy was talking about?"

"We should. It's probably the best idea for an escape route."

"Can I come?" Queried Steve Burnside.

They eyed him. Claire said, "Sure. Just don't be stupid, ok?"

"You got it, dollface. I'll be your bodyguard! A body like yours NEEDS a tough guy guarding it! Forget this girly haired doofus with you! How'd you like your insides to buuuuurn?"

Leon had to chuckle as they made their way out into the main area of the prison. Surely he never sounded that fucking stupid. This kid. All talk and bad one liners. What kind of guy hit on anything with tits like that? (…cough) The dude had ZERO game. And clearly he was barking up the wrong tree there. Claire wasn't looking to get down on a fetus, seriously.

Claire blinked once, twice, and a third time. "If my insides were burning, I'm pretty sure it would be a STD. So I'm gonna pass."

Leon snorted a little and moved toward what appeared to be the barracks for the staff. Or possibly the prisoners? It was hard to say. The area was over run with zombies and rotten food. It smelled worse than three day old shit and road kill left out in the Louisiana heat. But they managed to find some hemostatic medicine amongst the abandoned supplies there.

Claire hefted the bottle. "I'm going to take this back to the guy in the prison."

"I'll come with you."

Claire shook her head. "I think you and Steve should go toward the training facility we saw on that map. We have to cross through there to get to the mansion on the hill. The dude said the escape route was that way."

"You think I'm going to let you go back there alone and hang out with Sideburns?" Leon queried.

"It's Burnside." Whined Steve.

"Whatever, dude."

"I'm USEFUL! WATCH THIS!" And Steve turned, wielding two very gold, glittering (possibly real?) old pistols…and he proceeded to shoot them wildly toward the distance.

Claire yelled, "WAI—"

And a very loud, very explosive BOOM sounded followed a huge WHOMP of pressure. They were pressed to the dirt as the world shifted and debris rained down like fiery rain drops. He'd managed to hit the explosive tanks of oxygen piled up beside the infirmary. The noise was cacophonous and had clearly alerted a pack of zombies to their location.

Leon slapped him upside the back of the head. "IDIOT!"

"SAWRY! Sheesh!"

Claire yelled, "GO! Run for it! I will meet you at the mansion!"

"CLAIRE!"

But she was gone, running back the way they'd come. And there was no chasing her because the horde of the undead were shambling all around them now. Leon and Steve picked off the closest ones and hurried up the hill toward the bridge that would lead them to the facility.

Claire hurried through the graveyard, slopping wetly as the rain started to barrel down upon her. She could hear the echo of thunder in the distance, rumbling like an angry old man. She hit the stairs and flipped open her lighter, sending shivering flickers of light around her face as she hit the bottom floor. Rodrigo was still there, breathing slow but steady.

He gave her a surprised look as she gave him the medicine. He took it, swallowing it with the bottle of water on his desk. "Why?"

She met his eyes. "No deserves to die here. Can you move? You can come with me."

"Not yet. But you should go, seriously. Get out of here. And thank you."

Claire nodded and hurried back toward the stairs.

Rodrigo called, "Redfield was it?"

"It is."

"A good name…for a good woman."

Claire winked and hurried up the stairs toward the sound of pouring rain and thunder. She hurried out into the blinding rain, carrying the big knife she had. In hindsight, she might have taken one of Steve's stupid gaudy guns. But she was relatively sure she was going to be ok anyway.

And then something slapped her face.

Although slapped was a mild word. Something literally smacked the shit out of the side of her face. It threw an arm like a rubber band, snapped it sharply into her face with a meaty THWAP of sound and instant shooting pain, and threw her out and away like a swatted fly.

She was airborne, flying up and over several coffins. The knife was tossed clear out of her hand as she hit the ground, rolled, smashed into the side of a headstone and came to a head swirling stop. She breathed, trying to feel if anything was broken. She felt the throb of her skull but was otherwise ok.

The thing coming toward her looked like a corpse with bulbous eyes and melting skin…and one four foot long arm. The other arm? Gone. Finito. Missing. It was just hanging flesh. The remaining arm was coming in for another slap. Claire squeaked and rolled.

The arm slapped the muddy ground where she'd been, tossing chunks and plops of wet earth up like sloppy confetti. Claire scrambled to her feet and ran for it. She barreled through the pouring rain, gasping and terrified.

….and came face to face with the horde of undead lingering on the bridge.

"Oh my gawd." Breathless, terrified, she realized she was trapped. She couldn't face the rubberband man behind her. She couldn't fight the undead without a weapon. She was screwed. And she whispered, "Whafuck?"

At the top of the rise, Leon was inspecting the tank that sat in the middle of the open area in front of the big building they'd come to. What kind of place was it? It appeared to be a training ground of some kind. But for what? What happened here?

He was trying to find some way to activate the tank. Steve was currently inspecting dead bodies for useable weapons. Without Claire to hit on, the kid wasn't so bad. A little stupid maybe trying to be the lone ranger but boys tended to play hero when impressing pretty girls.

Steve said, "Hey, Kimmidee?"

"It's Kennedy, Sideburns. Get it right."

"Whatever." Steve snickered, "Look. I found this on the dead guy over there."

It was a journal. The journal was pretty explicit. It detailed the fall of the island at the hands of the overlords named Ashford. It went into detail about "Alfred" the brother of the dead sister, Alexia who were the offspring of Alexander. The ties to Umbrella were through the grandfather, Edward, who'd helped found the company.

Clearly this island used prisoners as test subjects for their perverted BOW experiments. Was there anyone tied to Umbrella that wasn't a psychotic asshat? Seriously? What the hell were they hoping to discover here? That nasty beasts were good as weapons? Who would they market to? Terrorists no doubt. Leon tried to imagine what life would have looked like if Hitler had had BOWS at his disposal in WWII.

Frightening.

"Fucking freakshow." Leon muttered and stuck the tiny journal into his chest pocket.

"Right? What the hell man." Steve agreed.

"Let's go back for Claire and fill her in."

"Cool."

They started back toward the bridge and heard the screaming. Leon was running, running, running. He burst out of the iron doors to find her trapped atop a couple of crates and kicking the infected around her for dear life.

He had another hero moment here. One that would define him later as he rose from the ashes of a rookie wet behind the ears to become the man who would one day stand at the right hand of the most powerful man in the world. He paused, aimed down his arm, and blasted the first one that touched her. She jumped, caught his eye, and looked relieved.

Steve yelled, "CATCH CLAIRE!" And threw one of his pistols down to her from the top of the rise.

She caught it, turned it, and blasted the next one that grabbed her boot. Leon was already leaping down. He landed in the mass of zombies and had Claire screaming in horror. But he turned, ducked, and started kicking.

He knocked two of them together and threw a pretty sweet kick that level three more. They tumbled, like bowling pins, knocking each other down. He blasted one in the face with his sidearm, leapt onto the crate with Claire, and cradled his hands. She put her foot down, he power tossed her up, and Steve caught her hands to pull her clear.

So she was safe…and he was now stuck on the crates.

How was this better exactly?

Claire threw her hands down to him, Steve grabbed her legs and lowered her a little over. Leon kicked the face of a zombie, grabbed the rocky wall of the rise, and pulled himself up sharply. He caught her hands and she grunted. They tugged, grunting, and pulling.

They got him halfway up and the rubber band man snapped that arm at him. Claire screamed as it caught Leon around the chest and jerked him clear.

"NO!"

It threw him away and he was gone. Gone. GONE. He went over the edge of the bridge and down into the water beneath.

"NOOO!" Claire shot the rubber band man with Steve's pistol until it was empty. She just kept firing. She kept shooting until it was down and dead. The zombies shambled around stupidly beneath the rise.

Steve helped her to her feet.

"He's dead. We have to go."

"Shut up, you idiot!" Claire ran toward the edge of the drop and looked down into the water. But Leon wasn't there. He'd been swept down the river or something. Horrified, she felt the tears try to rise up in her throat.

"Claire!" Steve grabbed her arms and shook her. "We have to get you out of here. It's what he'd want. Come on!"

He shoved her forward and they started running up the rise toward the palace looming there. Claire was breathing fast and sharp. It hurt. It hurt to breathe.

It hurt to breathe in and out.

She made it across the narrow walk way and started crying. The tears were hot and hurting. She leaned against the wall and gasped with it. Her heart. HER HEART. She tried to picture Leon's beautiful face being lost beneath the water and the pain was nearly blinding.

She gasped and covered her face. Steve opened the door to the palace and helped her inside.

"I'm sawry, Claire. I'm so sawry."

Claire opened her mouth to say something and there was the sound of a gun going off. They dove apart, rolling. Claire hid behind a column, Steve ducked behind the desk across from them. The main area of the palace they'd entered was wide open and flanked by a large curving staircase in white marble. Paintings graced the walls of various blonde children in states of play. It appeared they were twins and mischievous.

A whiny, high pitched, effeminate voice floated down to them from the top of the stairwell.

"YOU CAME TO PLAY WITH ME!? OR TO KILL ME!? You won't touch my sister! Do you hear me!?"

Claire tried to lean around the column to see the owner of the voice and the column erupted in marble as she nearly lost her face to the sniper round that met her attempt. She stayed put. "GO BACK AND DIE OUT THERE!" Whined the girly voice, "Or I will DESTROY YOU!"

She heard a door open and close and silence.

She and Steve held eyes across the room. Claire finally peeked again and found the room empty. They met in the center of the room. Steve tried to touch her and she shook her head at him.

"Don't. Let's get moving."

They turned to the far door. The one at the top of the stairs through which the weirdo with the gun had gone was locked. Leaving it alone, they chose the door on the bottom floor. It opened to a library of sorts with bugs. Bugs everywhere. It was clearly a collection from a clever mind. They were in framed collections along the walls and along the shelves around them.

They crossed through the large room looking at the gross bugs. Someone had lovingly displayed them everywhere. A small plaque informed her that Alfred's prize collection was his ants. Gross. And huge! She'd never seen ants so damn big before.

The far door opened to a courtyard of sorts. And waiting in the water? A hatch to a submarine. A submarine. Yes. A submarine attached to a palace on an island filled with zombies, prisoners, rubber band arm men, and psycho's that screamed like girls and tried to kill them.

The island where Leon Kennedy had died saving her.

Claire made a sound and moved toward the submarine. She opened the hatch and peered down the ladder. She started to climb down the ladder and there was a sound.

Turning, she watched three dogs snarl, snap, and try to kill Steve. He shot the first one, lost his footing and fell on his ass, and the second leapt for his face. Claire whistled, loudly.

It stopped, reversed, and ran for her. She braced, waited, and ducked low as it leapt. She rolled to her back, stuck her boots up, caught it clean in its rotting belly and launched it up and out into the rushing water around the submarine.

The third one hit her as she rolled to her feet. She stumbled, lost her balance, and fell into the water. The water was freezing! It stole her breath and she was immediately sucked away in the current. She grabbed the submarine to no avail. The water ripped her away while she heard Steve yell after her.

She went under and popped up, gasping for air even as she was pulled back under and tossed around. The water sucked her down, stole her fight, and tried to kill her. She hit something, hard, gasping and nearly passed out from lack of air.

And she was pulled up and free into the air, choking and sputtering.

Hands tossed her up onto the damp ground and she hit her face, choking and gasping. She was rolled over and she punched the person right in the stomach. With a OOF, her attacker (savior?) tumbled back from her.

Claire stumbled to her feet, running toward the palace in the distance. She'd been swept several hundred yards downstream. She booked it, gasping and coughing. And the voice behind her yelled, "CLAIRE!"

She stumbled, fell, turned back and saw him running toward her.

"LEON!"

She stopped running away and started running toward him. She leapt and he caught her around his front with a grunt. She kissed him, trying to eat his face possibly, or swallow his soul. Or potentially steal his will to live. She was a succubus and he didn't give a fuck. That they were both alive and alright was a miracle. And neither cared about anything but the other.

Claire swallowed his tongue, making some kind of mewling cat noise. They were breathless when they came up for air. He sat her down and she collapsed against his chest.

"Oh my god, Leon! How?"

"That thing knocked me over the bridge and I hit the water. I rolled and let the current carry me. I washed up not far from here. I saw you! I saw the dog knock you into the water. I couldn't get to you fast enough! I'm sorry for that."

Claire gasped, laughed, and started crying.

"Hey hey hey! No crying, Redfield! That's cheating."

Claire turned her face up and he kissed her again. It was softer now, easier but full of so many things. She met his eyes. "I think I love you."

They were both soaked, filthy, Leon's face was swollen on one side and Claire had a black eye. They looked awful, smelled worse, and were probably going to die by the end of the night…but they were both so happy. So happy. Because they had each other.

Leon said, "I know I love you, Claire Redfield. You want to get the fuck off this island?"

"I do. I SO DO. And then we go mountain climbing."

"Yep. Anywhere but an island." Leon agreed, laughing a little.

"Fuck yeah." They started toward the submarine Claire had left behind and Steve Burnside was running toward them.

"HEY HEY HEY!" He was waving his arms above his head. "Lookie lookie! I found this shit in the submarine!"

He was waving a card key and a bow gun. Leon blinked as Steve handed him the bow gun. "AWESOME SAUCE, yeah?"

He was so happy. Eager. Like a puppy. Like a happy stupid puppy. Claire patted his head. Leon patted his arm. Steve looked thrilled.

Claire said, "What's the card key for?"

Leon answered her, "Chances are it's for that training compound we found."

Steve nodded. "It's where badasses go to WIN! You want to see me win, hot mama?"

Claire rolled her eyes but started laughing. Even Leon had to laugh. Claire said, "Why not? Let's go see what winning looks like."

Leon chuckled again as Steve said, "I also win at sex, sweet thing. Want to see what THAT looks like?"

Leon slapped him on the back of the head. "Quit while only slightly behind here, Sideburns. Seriously. This girl? She's out of your league."

"Oh yeah!?" Steve squeaked as they moved into the training facility grounds, "How so!?"

"Because that girl?" Leon nodded toward Claire who was inspecting the tank, "That girl is ALL MINE."

"Oh man!" Steve whined, "This sucks dude. I ain't seen a girl in MONTHS. What do I do now?"

They opened the door to the training ground with a swipe of the card key. Leon met his eyes as they started to move inside, "What else guy? Put your pud in your hand and start pullin."

Steve kept right on pouting as they walked into the training facility and prepared to discover what horrors were lurking inside.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's note:

Sorry for the slow updating here. Too many stories, too little time. I haven't played Veronica in like three thousand years. This is the abridged, confused, and slightly weird version my brain can construct. It is all over the place, I have no clue if it follows the game. It has the general idea down (maybe). But it's where the story is going. Thanks for reading it. It's so silly and simple. I'm glad it's amusing people.

Slainte!

….

VI: ASHFORD, ASSHOLES, AND WHO FARTED ON CLAIRE?

ROCKFORT ISLAND, 1998

:::::::::::::::::SIX::::::::::::::::::::

The training facility was awful. It was decrepit. It was gross and filthy inside. Dead bodies were EVERYWHERE.

Burnside was potentially the dumbest kid ever born. He kept running forward into open rooms to look for weapons. Leon was silently calling him Scooby because he was an eager, stupid, somewhat whiny puppy of a kid.

It was a funny feeling to want to hold Claire's hand while they scoured the first floor of the filthy dump. But, admittedly, they'd had a nice moment out there. The fear of nearly dying had bonded them together again. They'd been fucking lucky bunnies since Raccoon City and it hadn't been enough to push a huge crush into love. Apparently, it had taken a trip down a roaring river and hanging with a dumbass to make them realize it.

They cleared rooms with Leon wielding the bowgun. But honestly, there wasn't shit to find. It was a dump. It contained nothing of any significance. They stepped into a room that was clearly meant to be a power generator, complete with a rushing water from a lions mouth bust, and something crackled above them. Leon looked up to see an old speaker hung on the wall in the corner on a rusty stand with duct tape holding it up.

A voice came out of the speaker. It was high pitched and girly.

"Heeeeellllooooo again!"

Leon lifted a brow at Claire, "You met Mike Tyson?"

Claire snorted a little.

And the voice said, "Welcome to my PLAYGROUND. I'm sorry to tell you that you won't be leaving. You see…I have need of TEST SUBJECTS. All my other playmates are DEADDDDD!"

Leon shifted a little and glanced at the far door. He had a feeling they were about to in a buttload of trouble. He wasn't wrong. The door burst open and a rubberband arm man came through. Claire made a sound and shoved him.

The arm snapped between them and smacked the floor where they'd been. Steve made a whoop of battle and raced at it. He fired his ugly luger and peppered it with heavy rounds. Leon lifted the bowgun and sent one straight into its face.

It staggered, Steve rushed it, and it swung that arm. It hit Steve who stumbled into the wall; Claire took up the charge and tackled it around the middle while he fell down. She ripped the arrow from its face and shoved it over the narrow bridge so it hit the water and was swept away.

Claire offered a hand to Steve and pulled him up. He was grinning at her. "I'll tell you what, hot stuff. If Kennybees dies over there, I'm gonna make you my woman until you can't STAND without craving the burn."

Claire showed him the arrow. "See this, Steve?"

"Yup." He wiggled his brows at her. "You like sharp pokey stuff? I can show you my arrow. Bet I can HIT that target of yours."

Leon took a step forward to smack him upside the head and Claire put the point of the arrow to his crotch. Steve blinked at her and grinned wider. "You like the rough stuff huh?"

Claire smiled, wolfishly. "Listen to me. I find your bumbling attempts at flirtation, sometimes, quite funny. You're being a pervoid right now. Shut up. Or I will give you the fucking you keep begging for."

Steve looked excited, "Oh yeah?"

" I will shove this arrow right up your cornhole. And then your insides will, indeed, start burnin."

Steve gulped a little and coughed. "Right. Right. So…maybe you're not really my type, dollface. Maybe…we just be friends."

Claire laughed and turned away. She offered the bolt to Leon. He took it from her hand with a wry expression on his face.

Claire went through the door the rubberband arm man had come through.

Steve looked pale and nervous now. He coughed again. "That chic is A-Class nutso man. A piece of ass for sure…but what a psycho."

Leon gave him a long suffering look. "Sideburns, you might the dumbest guy I've ever met. And that's sayin something when we're surrounded by the undead."

He smacked Steve upside the head for good measure as he followed Claire into the next room. This one was some kind of infirmary or something. It was filled with bottles of medicine and floating heads in jars. There was a couple of cots with mattress stained brown with old blood stains. A body was lying face down and half dangling on the floor.

Claire was pulling a set of shears from its temple. She glanced over her shoulder at them. And she made the shears open and shut menacingly.

Leon kept his face deadpan. Steve? He grabbed his nuts with a small sound of fear.

The room spilled them out into a big area with a SHIT LOAD of zombies. There were at least thirty of them. Claire tried to backpedal and the other way was blocked by a rubberband arm man.

Steve made a whoop of delight and raced at the zombies. Leon turned to face the rubberband arm man and Claire was too busy dealing with four undead to help him.

Split up, the three of them tackled their opponents individually. Leon was slapped around and thrown into the bloody cots to tumble to the floor with a grunt. He lost the bowgun and scrambled to avoid the slap of that huge arm as it came snapping down at him.

It smashed into the cot and over turned it, knocking him into the far wall. Leon was pinned behind it, gasping for air. The rubberband man slapped that arm into his face and knocked him cold.

Claire was already moving. She foot swept the zombie in front of her, shoved it into two more, and sent them toppling over the railing beside her. Steve was brandishing his gun like a champ. He blew one away and kicked two more into the water over the bridge.

Claire tackled one, lifted it at the hips in a move that would have made her brother proud, and threw it into three more. They all went down like bowling pins. The way was clear. She ran back into the infirmary and the rubberband arm man had Leon's face in its hand. He was lifting him off the floor and shaking him like a dog with a bone.

Shouting, Claire grabbed one of the jars with a head in it and launched it as she ran. It smashed with a tinkle of sound and burp of nasty liquid, and the rubberband man dropped Leon to the floor to face her. She whistled at it, waited, and rolled when it snapped its arm at her. She came up under it, shoved it around the hips, and pushed it over the cot beside it.

It went to the floor as she snatched up the bowgun and shot it in the ugly face. When it struggled, she ripped the bolt from its face and shoved it back in as it squealed. When it tried to snap its arm at her, she ripped the bolt out, ducked, and stomped on its face. She stomped until it was still and the ugly face looked, somehow, even uglier. It was hamburger. It was a mess.

She swung back to glance at Leon. He was on his face on the floor. She couldn't check him. Not yet. They had to take care of the zombies first.

She rushed out into the main area with the bowgun. The zombies converged on her. She shot two with one bolt through the face and kicked the next one that grabbed for her. She fought like she'd kill the all with her bare hands. Which, she kinda was.

When she was surrounded by five of them, she figured it was as good a day to die as any. She ripped the bolt from the closest dead zombie and started fighting with it like a knife. She took two with her and three more finally took her to the floor.

Screaming, flopping, she threw elbows and kicked bodies and felt the heat of fetid breath on her face. One came down for the final chomp and she turned her head away with a shout of denial. It was ripped off her a second later with the crunch of a broken neck.

She watched from the ground as Leon kicked, threw a pretty rocking punch to the face, and literally threw the undead off her. When her legs were clear, Claire rolled and kicked the next one that lunged for him. It staggered, Leon turned and drove a punch into its chest, and she finished it off with a shove over the railing.

He looked awful. His face was all swollen on oneside. His hair was a disaster. But he seemed ready to rumble. They paired up and took turns kicked and punching and pushing. The room was mostly clear when a fat zombie made a dive for her. It took her to the floor, Leon went to grab it and Steve gave a shout of rage so loud it scared the piss out of them.

He filled the zombie full of bullets while he screamed.

"DAAAAAAAD!"

And so Steve Burnside slaughtered his undead father. He fell to the ground and started weeping. Claire and Leon held gazes over his head. Leon patted his shoulder a little and Claire rubbed his hair.

Uncomfortable, they listened to Steve tell the horrible story of a terrible mistake and a corrupt power play that had landed both he and his father in the prison. Apparently, they all had reasons to hate Umbrella. Leon let Claire comfort him and moved around looking for anything to give them some help here.

Poked under a box in the corner, he found a blue ant. A blue ant.

An ant…that was blue.

Curious, he picked it up. It was heavy and made of some kind of stone. It had flecks in it that made it…pretty. If an ant could be pretty.

Shrugging, he stuck it in his pocket. You never knew when you might need a blue ant.

Even the sentence sounded stupid in his head.

They waited until Steve was done blubbering and weeping. Feeling sorry for him, Leon patted his hiccupping back as they kicked open the door of the training facility and stepped out into the rain. The courtyard was long and narrow. Claire crossed by him and Leon winced.

She blinked up at him. "What?"

He licked his lips and rolled them under. "You…smell pretty bad."

Steve was nodding a little. "Yeah. You reek. Did you fart?"

Offended, Claire shoved him. "Are you kidding!? It's all the zombie guts all over me. Intestines stink…you assholes."

Steve snickered a little. Leon looked slightly sorry about it. "Sorry. But…it's pretty bad. Hopefully the rain washes it away."

Steve said, "It smells like you shit yourself."

Claire, mad as hell, shouted, "You know what, Sideburns!? You probably DID shit yourself. You big baby."

Leon chuckled a little.

Claire gave him the stink eye, "Don't you start, Leon Kennedy. You got beat up by a rubberband man. If it wasn't for ME and my stinky ass…you'd be dead now! So, blow it out your ass."

Shamed, the two men followed her angry stride across the courtyard. Leon felt like she should learn to take a joke better. Sheesh. It wasn't THEIR fault she stunk. But it did grate the pride to also know she was right. She'd saved his life. They both knew it.

Steve looked like a sullen kid.

The trio of hapless heroes moved through the mud in silence. Finally, Steve broke the quiet by saying, "In the submarine…I came across a plane."

The whole sentence just sounded dumber than a box of rocks. But it was out there. So Leon intoned, "A what now?"

"A plane. But it's missing two weird disk things to get the platform across to it to expand. If we find them, we can get the fuck off this rock."

Claire and Leon joined eyes over his head. They were both seeing the same path here. It ended with them on a plane and headed to safety. Leon opened his mouth to congratulate their stupid companion on FINALLY being useful…and there was a rumble from beneath them.

Claire blinked.

Steve froze.

Leon felt the earthquake begin and knew they were about to face something pretty fucking awful. The ground was shaking so badly they all tumbled and stumbled and went down into the mud. Leon scrambled, Claire grabbed Steve to threw him forward…and the world ERUPTED.

From within the ground, the sandworm from Beetlejuice EXPLODED out of the muddy earth in a spray of flying mud and filthy water. It was massive. It was enormous. It was the biggest fucking worm they'd ever seen. The body was as wide as a schoolbus, as long as three of them back to back. The mouth had a thousand teeth exposed and dripping in a mouth with a tongue that looked like it would wrap three times around their throats and devour them.

First the biggest croc, now the biggest worm.

"What the fuck is with this corrupt ass company and making GIANORMOUS FUCKING MONSTERS!?" Yelled Claire at the top of their lungs.

And Steve bellowed, "RUN FROM THE HUGE COCK!"

If it was a penis, Leon mused, it was uncircumcised. And it was CLEARLY angry. It was going to eat them. The huge dick was going to eat them. It would have been comic if it wasn't the scariest moment they'd ever had.

Of course, it made sense that it looked like a cock…because they were FUCKED.

They ran, they fell, they rolled. Claire kept throwing Steve out of the way as it squirmed toward them and shook the ground with each movement. It went into the earth, the ground shook and tossed them around…and it sprang out to attack.

Leon felt the wind against his back as it missed him by inches.

He shouted, into the roaring rain, "RUN! GET BACK TO THE PALACE! HURRY!"

And they split up.

What choice was there?

They all ran for it.

Claire and Steve hit the gate first and burst through, rushing up the rise. Leon was forced back into the training facility. He backtracked and ran back the way they'd come.

At the palace, Claire and Steve emerged inside panting and gasping. She turned, scanning for Alfred. There was no sign of him. They waited.

They waited.

And Leon never showed up.

Steve said, "We should find those disks…cause um…you know…Kimmibeans would want us to."

Claire shook her head. She shook it again and she smacked his hand away from her arm. "Shut up. Just shut up. He's coming. He'll be here. And it's KENNEDY, you asshat. Kennedy! His name is LEON KENNEDY!"

Claire moved up the stairs, angry and scared. How often was she going to worry about Leon?! God, love was hard. It was awful.

It sucked shit and made you feel like you were as big as an ant. She kicked the locked door at the top. She kept on kicking until the damn thing burst open. The hallway beyond the locked door opened to a beautiful walkway filled with fragrant flowers and the sound of rain and wind.

Claire moved through down the walkway with Steve in tow looking nervous and scared.

At the far side, she eased open the gate and emerged in another open courtyard. This time a huge mansion was waiting for them. A mansion. What had Chris told her about mansions?

Nothing good ever happened in them.

She started forward and the sound of laughter drew her up short.

She was staring across the courtyard at a man in black. He was tall and handsome and blonde. He looked Nordic and fit and was smiling. He was…wearing sunglasses at night…which was just fucking weird. Claire lifted her brows at him.

"Who are you?"

The man started laughing. It was a creepy laugh. It was horrid. It made her skin crawl.

"You know…when I attacked this island…I had no idea I'd find something so perfect here. Claire Redfield…we've met before. You don't remember me? Your sainted brother belonged to me once. And tried to see me dead."

Claire froze. Steve, behind her, cowered.

"Captain Wesker?"

"Ah. AH. Captain. How long has it been since someone called me that?" Wesker meandered toward her. He was grinning like a cat that ate the canary, "I must thank you for being here, Claire. Really. Your brother will come for you now. And I will destroy him."

Claire narrowed her eyes at him. This fucker was the reason she was trying to find her brother. He was the reason Raccoon had gone down. He was the reason she was running for her life.

She said, "You won't. You won't touch him. I'll rip your dick off and shove it up your ass!"

He grabbed her around the throat and lifted her off the ground. One handed. One hand. He wasn't human. No way. Steve swung a punch at him and Wesker backhanded him, sending him sliding away.

Claire choked, gasping. She squeaked out, "My brother is TWICE the man you are!"

And Wesker laughed. He laughed and threw her. She went up and over and came down on her back. It hurt. She bowed and sucked in air as the pain washed over her. She rolled to her side and tried to get to her feet. She ground out, "My brother is GOOD, you son of a bitch. And good? It always wins!"

Wesker kicked her in the stomach and sent her rolling. She hit the gate with a clang of metal.

"I HATE CHRIS REDFIELD!" Shouted the man in glasses. He moved to grab her and stopped. He put his hand to his ear and said, "Mmm hmm. Yes. Really? No. Wait there. I'm on my way."

And he grinned down at her.

He grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her to her knees. She swung an uppercut at him the he deflected and followed up with a backhand. It sent her skidding along the ground on her face. "I'm going to leave you alive, you stupid girl. Take the gift. It appears I still need you. When your brother arrives? I'll show you how good guys lose. Come against me at your peril, Claire Redfield. And face the same fate as your brother."

Claire tried to get to her feet again and he shoved a boot down on her back, smashing her face into the cobblestones. "Don't be stupid. Stay down. Obey. Be a good dog. And maybe I'll let you live."

From the ground, Claire rasped out, "If you touch my brother…I will FUCK you up."

Sighing, Wesker said, "Idiot. Redfields are nothing but bravado and no brains." And he kicked her in the face.

The world exploded red, black, and white and went dark. She rolled across the ground listening to Albert Wesker laughing. Like nails on chalkboard. It was the shittiest end to the shittiest day.

Her body rolled, rolled, and stopped. And she slumped, defeated.

As her brain dumped her into the center of all that pain and left her floating…somewhere in the waiting dark.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's note:

Sorry for the slow updating here. Too many stories, too little time. I haven't played Veronica in like three thousand years. This is the abridged, confused, and slightly weird version my brain can construct. It is all over the place, I have no clue if it follows the game. It has the general idea down (maybe). But it's where the story is going. Thanks for reading it. It's so silly and simple. I'm glad it's amusing people.

Slainte!

….

VII: WHICH BATHROOM DO I USE? THE STORY OF A GENDER CONFUSED BOY NAMED ALFRED

ROCKFORT ISLAND, 1998

:::::::::::::::::SEVEN::::::::::::::::::::

Claire went into the dark watching the freak with the sunglasses jump up into the sky like a cracked out tigger. He just POOFED, right up over the wall and was gone. Because...that was entirely humanly possible.

His eyes flashed like the Terminator behind the lenses of his glasses as he went.

Red.

Frightening.

She trembled, and collapsed.

When she awoke, she was lying on her back on a smooth mattress.

It was a bedroom of some kind filled with knickknacks and things belonging to a girl...an ELEGANT girl based on the quality of the perfume bottles and the preciousness of the stones in the jewelry that Claire could see.

She was alone in the bedroom and seemed safe enough.

Rolling her legs to the side, Claire sat up.

She moved to the small desk across the room and leafed gingerly through the diary that sat on its dusty surface. It was a girls loopy scrawl. It was a collection of thoughts and feelings about the Ashford Family and the "responsibility" of being "noble". It started to turn darker as the diary wore on. A young girl was growing up alone in this mansion with only a father.

It started to talk about "feelings" for her brother. Her twin. It mentioned "want". It went into detail for eight pages about a dream she'd had regarding being "penetrated" body and soul by her "other piece". It read: We shared a womb once, I feel as though fate will lead us to share one again.

Horrified, disgusted, Claire shuddered and turned away from the diary.

Apparently worms and zombies and cracked out Terminator Tiggers weren't all that was corrupt and gross on this island. It was the isle of incest too, it seemed. She wasn't sure why, but the brother and sister pickle tickling bothered her more than the zombies and the death.

It was a sad reflection of how little surprised her anymore.

She started to dig through the other files on the desk and the door opened.

Startled, Claire turned toward it.

A woman in a long purple gown emerged.

They were both caught off guard for a brief moment.

Until the woman lifted the ENORMOUS rifle in her hands and aimed it at Claire's face.

"SO!" She intoned in a rich dulcet voice, "You are Claire Redfield. Have you come to destroy my family?"

Claire shifted a little, hands raised. "No. I swear. I just want off this island."

"Liar." The gun tracked her as Claire shifted away from the desk, "For the pride of the Ashford Family, I will destroy you to protect what's mine!"

The gun went off, Claire dove for it, and skidded over the floor beside the bed. The bullet hit the mattress and threw goosedown and feathers up in the air in a poof of destruction.

Claire tried again, huddled on the floor, "WAIT! PLEASE! We're just trying to get away. I swear!"

"Stop playing the fool! I saw you in the courtyard with HIM! I know why HE'S here!"

Well, shit.

Wesker - fucking things up without even trying since Raccoon City.

The slick haired bastard.

Claire heard the gun cock again. She lifted her hands to ward off her own death.

And the door opened again.

The gun whipped around with a squeal of surprise from Alexia.

And Claire heard Leon's voice, "What the fuck?"

Claire shouted, "LEON!"

And two guns went off at the same time.

Alexia was thrown back into the wall with a cry of pain and she grabbed the bust of a man beside her and shoved. The wall tilted and opened and she slipped through. Claire rolled from behind the bed, hurrying to where Leon was leaning on the desk.

He had a hand cupped over his biceps. He was bleeding pretty badly.

Claire slapped her hand over it to help. "Oh god! You're ok?"

"Well, I'm SHOT. So that sucks. But I'm not dead. So, I guess it's 50/50."

Claire rolled her eyes and kissed him, hard.

He glanced at the wall where Alexia had gone. "Secret passage huh?"

"Looks that way. Wait here, I'll go after her."

Leon's look was deadpan. "Right. I'm gonna leave you alone in a mansion where there decor consists of melted dead baby dolls hanging grotesquely from the ceiling like ugly chandeliers...right."

Claire chuckled a little, "You see Steve?"

"Sideburns is fine. He's messing around in one of the offices trying to get some information on the pieces we need to get the bridge moving to the plane."

"Ok." Claire picked up a pair of silk stockings from the boudoir. She tied them around his biceps to act as a bandage. When it was secure and holding, they moved together toward the little door and eased it to the side to slip through.

The other room was clearly Alfred's.

It was masculine. From toy guns to model trains on the desk to the painting on the wall of the man in question. An effeminate looking thing, he was tall and skinny and blonde. He was the "masculine" version of his sister. But while Alexia had seemed regal and ladylike, Alfred seemed girlish and weak.

Across the blue bedspread, a blonde wig lay forlornly.

Claire glanced at Leon with raised brows. He shrugged a little and poked the wig with the bowgun.

Claire touched a button on the dresser and a tiny musical projector clicked on. The video that flickered on the wall were two toe headed children huddled together pulling the wings off dragonflies. They'd pluck and smile, pluck and sigh. Twins, clearly, they put their foreheads together when the ants converged on the dragonfly and started eating.

Their joy was evident and innocent...and disgusting.

Claire and Leon both made grossed out faces.

"Pervs."

Claire had to agree with Leon's statement.

A music box sat to one side. It was hand carved and lovely...and locked. The lid was an ornate sapphire bedazzled silver filigreed indention...in the shape of an ant.

Brows lifted, Leon pulled the blue ant from his pocket and poked it in the indentation.

There was a click of sound and the canopy of the bed beside them lowered with a metallic whine and a whir or gears. A ladder waited for them to ascend.

Leon glanced at Claire.

Claire glanced at the ladder.

And he said, "Nope."

She laughed a little and rubbed his arm. "Wait here, tough guy, I'll go."

Shaking his head, he boosted her up to the canopy and followed her up. They went up the ladder with Claire leading the charge.

The attic was dusty and cluttered with boxes unlabeled and half empty. A quick perusal of them found nothing of interest...save for the massive carousel that sat in the center of the dingy darkness.

Claire pursed her lips.

Leon licked his teeth.

And she said, "Nope."

Leon laughed a little and moved toward the carousel.

Claire flipped through papers and read newspaper clippings: Ten year old genius graduates at the top of her class. Hired by Umbrellla Inc. as a head researcher.

A ten year old girl!?

Genius or not...what a stupid ass company, Claire thought, who hires a KID to be a top researcher? Maybe a top TASTE TESTER for cereal or something. But a researcher? A ten year playing with world ending viruses.

Horrifying.

A small dragonfly in pretty silver was waiting below the newspaper clipping. Claire picked it up and touched one delicate wing. It shivered and clicked down into the spindely body. Lips pursed, Claire turned to look at the ant on the wall beside her. It was huge, massive, a gross but loving painted homage to a nasty bug.

A nasty bug with a hole in the face that was waiting for something.

Maybe something that would feed it.

Like a dragonfly.

Claire fed the dragonfly to the ant.

Even thinking it made her feel dumb.

But it worked like a charm because the ladder on the carousel dropped with a plop and a thunk, startling the former rookie cop that was poking around on the enormous carousel looking for clues.

This time, Kennedy took the ladder to the top and left Claire below.

He returned after a moment with a grin, and a proof in one hand. "I'm thinking? Key to the platform Sideburns was talking about."

Claire grinned back,"Let's blow this Popsicle stand."

"Read my mind, hotstuff."

They went back into the bedroom together and moved toward the door.

Above them, a loud shriek of rage filled the room and Alfred Ashford leaped down from the canopy atop Leon whooping like a banshee.

Claire shouted and slapped at him. Leon kicked him so hard he was thrown into the dresser and slid like a lump to the floor and the gun in his hands skittered around the floor.

Leon grabbed it, pointed it at him, and they all froze.

Because Ashford was wearing makeup.

Tasteful, smudged, expertly applied - but make up.

He blinked at them.

They blinked back.

And his head rolled to the mirror on the dresser beside him.

"What is it?!" He screeched in that whiny girl voice of his and then he squealed in horror, "What!? What is this!? WHAT IS THIS!? NO! NOOOO! NOOOOO! NO IT CAN'T BE! ALEXIA!? WHY?! WHAT!? WHATTTT!?"

He pulled his hair, shrieking and dancing. He slapped his face. He stuck a finger in his nose and wiggled it. He pulled his lips and made raspberries with his mouth. He slapped the mirror and started sobbing, high pitched and horrible.

"I AM A MAN!" High pitched and rage filled. And then? His voice became soft and feminine, "I am a woman!"

He swirled where he stood, dancing. He shrieked, "I HAVE A PENIS!"

He paused to blush and affect a curtsy, "I have a vagina!"

He pointed at them, "BOY GIRL BOY GIRL BOY GIRL! BOYGIRL! Boy? GIRL? ALEXIA! ALEXIA!? WHERE ARE YOU!? WHAT HAVE I DONE!? WHAT AM I!?"

Leon felt one of them should answer, maybe. Maybe? "Transgender?"

Claire intoned, "Nuts?"

And Alfred shrieked, "I HAVE NUTS! YOU BITCH! I AM A MAN!" His voice turned female again, "I AM ALEXIA ASHFORD! I am an ASHFORDDDD! FAAAATHER!

And he fled the room screaming with a tantrum and grief.

Claire and Leon were rooted to the floor in shock.

Finally, Leon spoke, "Was there ever an Alexia?"

Claire shrugged a little, "I don't know?!"

They glanced at each other again. Leon coughed a little, "Which bathroom do you think he uses?"

Claire shook her head, "I don't give a shit, as long as he washes his damn hands."

"Can't argue with that. Why do I kinda feel sorry for him...her?"

They stepped into the hallway together. It was dark and dreary. As they moved, Claire realized they whole place was. She saw what he meant about macabre. The place was a torture palace.

The sick kids in the video they'd seen had clearly used the mansion as their playground of horrors. Bodies dangled, bloated and rotting. Someone had gutted one where it swung, spilling intestines to the floor like a burst pinata of crap.

They were nearly to the stairs with the bleating of sound filled the air.

It was loud and obnoxious, "THE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED! PLEASE VACATE THE PREMISES DIRECTLY!"

Leon sighed dramatically, "Of course they're gonna blow the place up. Why not? It seems to be Umbrella's answer to everything these days."

"Right? Assholes."

They raced across the courtyard and found Steve rushing toward them. He was waving his arm with excitement, "I FOUND THE NAVY PROOF!"

Without pausing, they followed his skinny butt back to the submarine. He went first, wiggling down the ladder.

Claire started down after him.

And the voice of the enemy drifted around them, "Leaving so soon, Claire?"

Wesker waited on the walkway beside the submarine. And the speakers informed them they had ten minutes to detonation.

Claire struggled back up the ladder. The world shook as something exploded. And something erupted out of the water behind them.

The sexless thing was all muscle. It had claws on one hand and a sneer on its rotting face. It's flesh was gray and necrotic.

And, just like that, they were trapped between two bad guys.

Wesker considered them, smiling, "It seems the tyrant has decided to play with you instead. Perhaps I will await my turn for the arrival of your brother."

Another explosion had them staggering, and Wesker took off into the sky like Superman.

Leon blinked. Claire said, "Yep. He can do THAT."

"Whafuck?"

"Right?"

And the tyrant leaped at them.

Leon pushed Claire left and dove right, the tyrant landed between them and punched one way and kicked the other, and Claire just wasn't fast enough. The push had saved her life but not her face. The punch glanced off her jaw, she spun 360 from the strength of it, and she fell down into the opening where the ladder was. The kick caught the former rookie right in the junk as he sprang forward to grab her to safety.

Leon took a massive kick to the nuts like a champ though. He grabbed himself and staggered but he did NOT fall down.

So it was kinda a victory.

Claire meanwhile was out before she even fell. Her eyes rolled back in her head and down she went. Leon shouted with rage, and he heard Sideburns yell, "She's unconscious but alive! I'll get her to the plane!"

And Leon shouted back, "Get her out of here! You hear me!? GET HER OUT OF HERE! I'LL HOLD THIS MOTHER FUCKER RIGHT HERE!"

This was another shining moment where there was a hero born inside of a coward. The boy who'd panicked and squeaked at his first zombie faced down the massively muscled mutated form of the tyrant without a glimmer of fear.

Well, with a HUGE glimmer of fear, but bravery was often born in fear.

The tyrant raced for him, Leon leaped off the submarine and ran for it to lead it away, and the sounds of swirling engines was punctuated by explosions and crackling fire and the promise of the self destruct sequence telling them they had five minutes.

Leon backed up, heard the tyrant give chase, and said goodbye to Claire as he raced toward the only hope left - stopping the self destruct sequence, killing the tyrant, and saving the girl he loved. He prayed she'd forgive him for being the hero.

He doubted she would.

He figured if she woke up safe, maybe she'd over look the fact that her safety had come at the expense of his.

The tyrant roared, Leon figured it was slightly less scary than Claire's rage when she awoke to find him gone, and considered the fact that Sideburns was now alone with an unconscious Claire. Here was hoping the dirty little perv had a decent soul under that wasted bravado and horndog shell. Because all the hopes were pinned on him now.

That's right, he was trusting Sideburns to save his girl. He had no idea how the hell he was going to get off this island now. He was pretty sure his bladder was going to BURST soon with the need to take a piss. He was starving and cold and bleeding. His girl was in the clutches of a dirty pervert slash protector. He was being chased by a monster with enormous claws. He had no weapon. He had one shoe untied. His hair was sticking up with some kind of gunk like an ugly mowhawk. He smelled like garbage and fart. His balls were throbbing from the kick he'd taken on the submarine.

He had no CLUE where to find the shut off for the self destruct sequence.

And his only hope was that Chris Redfield got there in time to save him.

He was a damsel in distress. HE was the damsel. It was too ironic to be anything but horrifying.

It was officially the worst night of his life.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's note:

So - this story is still super hilarious for me to go back and read. I love it. I wish I could crank it out a little faster - but I have eight hundred stories and my mind won't rest on just one.

Slainte!

….

VIII: UP A MOUNTAIN SIDE - CAME A MOUNTAIN

ROCKFORT ISLAND, 1998

:::::::::::::::::EIGHT:::::::::::::::::::

Up the mountain side, came the mountain.

Well, not the mountain exactly - he was years away from being the mountain. But he was boulder (*cough*) and he was the brother to the missing girl. And he was THERE. He'd tracked the message from Kennedy and here he was - climbing a mountain to find his baby sister.

He was ready to rumble too. He was. He was loaded for bear - or zombie - or big fat tyrants or pissed off former Captains - or nasty hunters with hook claws. He had an assault bag strapped on his back filled with gear. He was so fucking prepared it was overkill.

Mr. Boyscout. Always prepared!

Nothing was going to stop him. He was a tank. A tornado. A rapid rage filled hero on a quest to save the day! He was BULLETPROOF!

He gave his bulging arm muscles a little wink, impressed with his own girth. He wasn't huge yet, but it was coming. He was going to be a mountain! All muscle! Unflappable! Unstoppable!

He had guns on his back and guns above his fist. What the what!? He was so ready to fight bad guys. He whistled, happily, "Unstoppppppable!"

The chunk of mountain side he was currently grabbing crumbled. Concerned, he grappled for another piece and missed. His body swung back, smacked into the heavy craggy wall, and he nearly fell.

The second his arm swung back, the bag on his back swung with him. He hit the wall, the bag took the hit, the strap gave a SNAP of releasing cloth and his big bag of bad ass tricks? Down it went.

Chris Redfield let out a horrified shout of rage. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? COME BACK! BAG! COME BACK! What in the figgity fuck man!"

And he was now down to a handgun and a knife.

Who the hell went into a fight like that!?

Maybe he'd get lucky and there wouldn't be anything to fight. Maybe he'd just find Claire and they'd get away without doing battle with monsters.

Maybe the war would end and he'd fuck a thousand chics and get blowjobs until he dropped dead at 102 with four wives and fifty rockin off spring. Why not? If they were making up shit that was NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, why not imagine he'd have a twelve inch dick and twin's with double d's doing him until he went blind?

Why not?

Maybe there was one waiting on top this mountain for him.

He reached the top and hoisted himself up, grunting a little.

Nothing but mud and a mess. That's what was left of the sizzling shit pit that had once been Rockfort Prison.

The building waiting for him was blocked by an enormous tank. It was in sad shape and didn't look like he was going to find Claire in the hollowed out carcass left behind.

The tank was cold to the touch and WWII issue. Chris pressed the button that was, seemingly wide open and waiting on it. It chugged and huffed and rolled ten feet forward...and a small lift appeared out of the ground.

Chris sighed. He stepped out the lift.

He hit the button and down he went into the ground.

Stupid.

STUPID.

Nothing good happened underground.

But?

Down he went.

The lift stopped and he stepped off, gun up and ready. He cleared into the first room on his right in the sterile, cold, steel bunker where he found himself. The room had several lockers and a cot. He checked for anything useable and was about to leave...when the sound of laughter tickled his ears.

A large monitor flickered on in the adjacent area and showed a beautiful woman.

She was cuddling a body with her face in an ugly red officer's coat.

She smiled at the camera like she could see him, "Captain Redfield is it?"

Chris shifted, lowering his gun. Would he shoot a monitor? Seemed stupid.

He answered, "Who are you?"

"Alexia...it's my island where you find yourself. It's my brother who lies dead in my arms. It's your sister who murdered him." She lifted her lips in a small smile, "It seems we're in a bit of a mess. I have what you want. You have what I want."

He met her eyes in the screen. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"An eye for an eye, Captain. I'll give you your sister back...if you take the place of my brother."

Jesus.

PSYCHO.

She kissed her dead brother on the mouth and made Chris twitch. Twins. GROSS.

"Sure. Sounds fun. I like a little kinky shit and at least we're not actually twins...but whatever. You give me, Claire, you keep me. Even stevens. Sure thing. Where you at, dollface? I'll head that way."

Alexia grinned, amused, eyes twinkling. "A long way away, Captain. You have to earn it, it seems. Where the cold blows and the end of the world beckons...find me. And join me. And Claire? Maybe she lives to see another day."

The screen flickered off. Chris cursed in rage.

There was nothing he hated more than bitches playing god. He'd met that type before...and left him boiling in his own blood in the bottom of a burning mansion.

Clearly, this bitch didn't know who she was messin with.

...

Obviously, the "bitch" in question wasn't dead at all. In fact, Albert Wesker was standing watching the same show.

He saw Alexia. He knew where the power he covted waited.

And he knew it was time to get rid of Redfield. He touched a button and a tiny little robot emerged, flickering a laser on the floor. With it, a small chamber opened to his right...and two sets of huge claws emerged followed by a reptilian leer.

Wesker stroked the face of the hunter, almost lovingly, almost like Alexia had stroked her dead brother.

"Finish him. Make me proud."

And a warbling cry echoed around the darkness where they stood.

...

Chris hurried from the room, racing toward the far end of the hallway. The door opened to a chamber filled with a shattered walk way and rushing waterfall that spilled in a foamy wash down into nothing. This place was trashed. It was derelict.

He knew in his guts that Claire wasn't here.

But where was she?

He rounded the corner and got hit in the face.

Just like that.

Pop.

It lifted him off his feet and threw him across the room. He went into the wall on his ass and felt like his nose was broken. Spitting blood, Chris heard the warbling.

He got his gun up.

It landed on him and took him to the floor with a shriek in his face that smelled like old blood and fart.

His gun went off and shot it in the chest and it drew back its clawed hand to impale him.

Bulletproof his ASS. He was deader than Moses. He blocked it, the claw tore up the floor an inch to his right shoulder, and a gun went off. Once, twice, three times - the hunter turned and the unknown gunman spun a back kick at it.

It reared, Chris kicked it in its rubbery sexless groin, and shot it right in its roaring face.

Another boom and it was blasted off its feet and thrown into the wall.

Chris rolled, the hunter slid to the floor in a heap, and the gunman put his hand down.

Clasping it, Chris was pulled to his feet.

They held eyes.

Chris thought: What kinda shit was this? Leonardo DiCaprio's buffer brother coming to save him?

And Leon thought: What kind of fucking idiot wore their uniform around when they were trying to stay undercover?

Leon said, "Chris Redfield?"

And Chris replied, "Who's asking?"

"Leon S. Kennedy." They shook, quickly.

"How'd you know it was me?"

"...you're wearing your old uniform."

Chris blinked. Leon blinked, and remarked, blandly, "Maybe not wise when you're trying to stay under the radar there, fella."

Chris shook his head, "If you're here. Where's Claire?"

"Long story short, she's with Sideburns."

"...tell me that's the indian name of some bad ass secret agent."

Leon shook his head, sighing, "Sadly no. It's a twelve year old pervert that wants to get in her pants. But he can, apparently, pilot a plane. I saw them fly off. Yeah...you heard that right. They left me."

"...you let a twelve year old pervert kidnap my sister?"

They held deadpan expressions.

Leon pursed his lips. Chris lifted his brow.

And Leon remarked, "Yeahhhh...I'm the dumb one. Of course, she drove into Raccoon City looking for your stupid ass a few months ago. Because, apparently, a phone call saying DON'T GO, SIS, ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE wasn't on your to do list while you were fleeing for your life like a little bitch."

The silence dragged between them.

Finally, Chris replied, stonily, "Point taken. Watch it, Kennedy. I don't have to like you to work with you here."

"I'm a likeable guy, Redfield. Claire likes me. Quite a bit in fact. We like each other. You might know that, too, again if you ever made yourself available so we didn't have to hunt you down like the lost colony of Roanoke."

"I've been busy." They moved into the far room, clearing as they went.

"Yeah? Us too. Maybe you didn't hear, surviving Raccoon City, tracking you down, working for the government. Just the usual."

Chris rolled his eyes and they cleared into the next area. A lab, clearly, with a tank swirling with some kind of nitrous oxide or something. The one thing that was clear?

They didn't want to know what was in there.

Chris checked the station sitting there. He clicked keys and scanned information as it popped up.

Leon, curious, remarked, "Where's the back up?"

Chris said nothing.

"The back up, Redfield? The help? The helicopters and the crew coming to save the day? Where are they?"

"No back up. Just me."

Quiet.

Silence.

And Leon laughed. He just laughed. "Just you."

"Just me. I couldn't risk anyone else."

"Just you...and a handgun."

"...yep."

"Just you and a handgun. That's it? You couldn't at least bring a fucking assault bag with an artillery? You had to come with just one fucking pistol? Who does that!? Who goes into a hostile area with just a goddamn pistol!?" (*cough*)

Chris eyed him drolly. "You, apparently. You storm that compound in Paris with just a pistol, you hypocrite?"

"NO! I had TWO pistols!"

They held glares.

And Leon added, "And Claire. I had two pistols and Claire."

"I had a fucking bag, ok!? I...dropped it."

Silence.

"You dropped it?"

"Yeah. Har har har. I dropped it! I was claiming the mountain to get here...and it fell. Whatever. It doesn't matter anyway. Let's...just figure out how to get off this island and find Claire, ok?"

Leon shook his head, laughing without humor. He'd been fucked in his life plenty. First - in the third grade when three kids had ganged up on him and beat him bloody for his lunch money. Second - when he got caught poking the quarterback's girlfriend in the backseat of his Jeep Sophomore year and got his front teeth knocked out for it. Third - running late for his shift at work and walking into the zombie Apocalypse. And now. NOW.

Standing here with an idiot in an RPD STARS uniform that dropped their only hope down a mountainside.

He opened his mouth to say something clever and the door opened. They both lifted their weapons.

They both turned.

And Dolph Lundgren came through the door.

He was wearing sunglasses and an ugly black battlesuit.

Leon mused, "Whafuck?"

And Chris shouted, "WESKER!"

So NOT Dolph Lundgren apparently. But close enough.

Wesker smirked and said, "REDFIELD!"

Why was everyone always shouting on this island?

But it didn't matter. Because Wesker rushed them.

He didn't move. He...teleported. Or broke the space time continuum. Or poofed and popped up in front of them. Whatever.

It sucked.

He hit Chris so hard the guy was throw across the room. He backhanded Leon like a bitch and sent him spinning like a top. Leon hit the wall, flipped over the console, and came down on his butt behind it.

Whafuck?

Chris was strangling and grunting like a pig.

Wesker was laughing and dangling him. "Redfield, you brave fool, this is where you join the rest of your incompetent team. I've been waiting for this moment."

Leon fired two shots, Wesker ducked right and left and missed being hit by both, and threw Redfield into the tank.

Awesome...not. NOT awesome at all.

It cracked. It leaked.

It broke.

And the screen by the far wall lit up.

A beautiful face, a musical laugh, "...oh...ohhhh...beautiful. Come see me. Won't you?"

It clicked off. Wesker tilted his head, smiling softly, "Alexia..."

And POOF.

Gone.

The tank shattered. It threw shards like bullets.

The rubberband man stepped out. The far door flew open and a nasty faced hunter came on in on its bowlegged gait.

Leon jerked Chris to his feet and jacked a shell into the shotgun. Chris reloaded his handgun with his last magazine.

Leon sighed, backing up, and mused, "Dropped it huh?"

Chris gave him the finger and a glare, "Shut up, you little asshole, just shut up."

And the rubberband man threw his arm between them.


	9. Nine: Hey Girl! Black Ice Ain't the Only Thing I'm Falling For!

IX: Hey girl - Black Ice ain't the only thing I'm falling for....  
.......

ANTARCTICA, 1998

:::::::::::::::::NINE:::::::::::::::::::

Claire would later think about how one ends up in the middle of nowhere with a pervert.

Of all the things in her life that sucked lately, this was the least of them. Apparently, somewhere between losing the love of your life and waking up in the middle of a prison, there was coming to in the cockpit of a wrecked airplane with a tongue in your mouth.

She would have traded gang rape in the prison by angry inmates for this shit show ANYDAY.

Claire spat, cursing loudly, even as Steve shouted, "I BROUGHT YOU BACK! WHOOOT!"

It was colder than a well digger's ass, she was shivering on the freezing steel of the still smoking plane, and Steve Burnside had just finished giving her CPR accompanied by a cleansing of her tonsils. She smacked him hard in the chest, shoving him away. "GROSS! You always deep throat your victims?"

Steve puffed up his chest, face flushing, "You only a victim of my loooove, girl. Besides, I SAVED YOUR LIFE...seemed ok to get a kiss. Isn't that what heroes get?"

Idiot.

She gave him a narrow look

He grinned, "It's nothing but cold here doll. Can I hiber-mate with you?"

Claire rose, pushing at his skinny shoulders. "Dumb ass. Where's Leon?"

Steve shifted and shifted again. The silence dragged out. Claire felt her throat seize. "Steve...where is Leon?"

Sharper, a little more shrill. She didn't like sounding shrill, really, but she was starting to get concerned. Finally, Steve answered her, "...he kinda stayed behind remember? On Rockfort Island."

No.

No no no. No no no no no no no. She shook her head in denial. "No. NO!" She slapped him twice and had him recoiling, "YOU LEFT HIM BEHIND!"

Lord, that was a loud shout. A loud shout in a really cold building of some kind. She might think about that too, and the snow falling on her face from the shattered roof of the plane, but she was too upset. He was saying he'd left Leon behind to die.

He'd left Leon behind on an island set to blow up.

Her heart hurt so bad that she rubbed at her sternum and collapsed against the wall. Steve scrambled toward her, looking pensive. "I'm sowwy! I am! He told me to!"

He would. The fool. The adorable. wonderful bastard. Maybe...maybe he'd stopped the countdown? Hadn't they played this game once? Thinking he was dead?

Clearly they were still close by right? Steve had been headed to a neighboring island when she'd passed out.

Concerned, Claire asked, "How are we here?"

And Steve sighed, "The plane...I lost control of it. It just...steered here. And we weren't alone...we weren't alone on it. That thing followed us, Claire. It knocked you into the roof...I didn't know what to do. So I just...hit the doors to the loading bay and it...kinda got sucked into space."

Wow.

Impressed, Claire blinked at him. "Really?"

He shrugged. "It was all I could think of at the time."

"Worked right? Good thinking." She moved to check the guages on the cockpit dash. "Where are we?"

"I don't know. Honestly. It's freezing ass cold. I can't see dick beyond the plane roof when I poke my head up. But it feels like my eyeballs might freeze outta my skull. Do you wanna see my snowballs?"

Apparently, he couldn't do anything but hit on her with bad one liners without Leon around. Claire gave him a muted look. "First - get on that console and try to raise anyone, anywhere, to find us. Secondly - I'm going to go down to the ground and see if I can find something to try to get us out of here."

Steve gave her a wiggles of his brows. "Better hurry, girl. I'm not weatherman, but you can't expect more than a few inches tonight if ya know what I mean."

Claire smacked him upside the back of the head,"Stop. Now. I mean it."

"What? Kimmidee isn't here. We might be the only two peeps left on earth. We gotta make babies, Claire. And fucking is how we stay alive in this place right? Gets the heart rate up, makes the blood pound. The snow is blowing out there, Claire. BLOWING. Wanna do the same?"

And she smacked him in the face.

It rang, loud and echoing. He blinked, twice, and his lip popped out like he might cry. Claire pointed in his face. "Shut up. Grow up. Get it together and stop being a stupid asshole. You hear me? If I don't find Leon again, I'm going to blame you. I'm going to rip off your tiny dick and shove it up your ass. So the only person you will be fucking, will be yourself. Do you understand me?"

He blinked and retorted, "In highschool, my nickname was Burnsides the Butt Warmer. Just sayin."

He was incorrigible. A real piece of work. In other news, at least it kept her mind off her possibly dead boyfriend somewhere in the world. She glanced at the wintry sky above them and whispered, "Leon...wherever you are...I will find you."

It felt very Last of the Mohicans, but she still liked the dedication behind it. She just hoped he knew to stay safe.

Of course, as she climbed down, and listened to Steve work on his one liners - she was betting he was better off than her anyway. God knew, there was nothing worse than an amorous teenager trying to get in your pants in the middle of a nightmare.

.....................................

The arm smacked between them, echoing. Currently, no one was safe.

If he'd had to choose between a foul mouthed lecherous shit like Sideburns or rubberband man...he'd likely pick the rubberband man. Leon avoided losing his face to the next snap of its arm as he ducked behind the console.

It struck; sparks and fire crackled noisily into the open air. It chased him down the row as he crouched and ran, trying to get his feet and stay alive. Leon shouted, "REDFIELD! SHOOT THE FUCKING THING, WOULD YA!?"

The rubberband man jerked as Redfield put a bullet in the side of its head but it didn't go down. So...apparently he was a crack fucking shot under all that stupid bravado. Admirable, useless given the state of their current affairs, but admirable. A stupid handgun was NOT going to stop this bastard from breaking all Leon's ribs.

It drew back its arm to end him in a single move, and Leon threw his arm over his face to cower.

Real manly like though. It was really really manly. He cowered like a MAN. A man's man. A TOUGH GUY! He cowered like a hero! Right? Sure.

He also didn't die. Redfield tackled the goddamn rubberband man like he was taking down the quarterback. Leon was betting his balls that the guy had played football in highschool. He hit that monster broadside with a grunt of power.

It sent them over the console in a flop of bodies and noise.

Leon rolled out of the way and turned back to kick the damn thing in its side as it landed atop Redfield in the rush. It roared, Leon kicked it again in the face, and Redfield rolled up to smash his fist into its melting jaws. It was a totally, completely, balls to the wall, MAN FIGHT. They kicked the shit outta the thing with fists and boots.

Nobody made a small sound of fear during the fight when it tried to eat their nose. Nope. No one did that. Not Chris, when it nearly took his ear, or Leon, when it smacked him in the side with its arm. Nope. All men, all the time - all fighting like heroes in the streets and the dark like Batman.

Redfield body chucked it into the broken tank and side swiped its massive arm as it tried to fight back. Leon ducked under the arm, pummeled it twice in the face with his right fist, and kicked its naked groin. They went in together to tip it backward, shouting like warriors, and used the broken edge of the glass tank to impale it through the chest.

Blood sprayed, they ducked to avoid the splatter, and backed off while it struggled and died.

The ragged breathing filled the air when it was over.

Without a word, Chris stuck his hand out. Leon took it, shaking it, and the former sniper remarked, "I'm glad you were with Claire."

A high compliment. Leon returned, dead pan, "I'm glad Claire doesn't look like you."

Chris sighed, shaking his head, "Sadly, you're still the big loser here. You let a teenager perv take her away. The good news is that she'll feed him his dick on the end of a pencil if he even tries."

Leon nodded, picking up his gun from the floor. "You got that right."

Chris rose beside him, "...so we need to find her."

Leon gestured toward the side door, "Ladies first."

They eased out of the lab together and found the first of a series of problems that would stop them from finding Claire. The small set of stairs beside them curled up to the main floor of the facility - a weird tunnel made of mud and beams. It was mostly quiet at first, offering a few seconds of solitude.

And then all hell broke loose.

The world shifted and rumbled. The ceiling peppered them with dust and debris. The beams groaned under the assault. And the wall of the tunnel completely collapsed in a shower of rock and concrete.

They had to duck and cover to avoid the explosion.

The giant sandworm from Beetlejuice had returned to finish the job it had started with Claire and Sideburns.

Leon yelled, "...penis!"

Chris jumped like he'd been stung by a bee and shouted, over the rumbling, "Whafuck?"

Leon returned, "Prepare for the fucking of a lifetime, Boy Scout. Here comes the world's most giant cock."

It burst through with a thunderous mutiny of sound. It was Tremors with Kevin Bacon or something. It tried to eat them as it roared into the open air. They split up, shouting and running.

Leon barely had time to put his arms over his head as he ran.

It jumped, it dove, and it took Leon down like Moby Dick swallowing Captain Ahab. He couldn't even shout as it took him into the ground in one gulp. Chris shouted in horror.

Chris heard the small cry of the other man first.

It was the guard who wished to be a dancer, Rodrigo, waving his arms. One held a big ass gun in it. Chris rushed toward him, stumbling with the shaking floor and ceiling. He slid on his knees and grabbed the gun.

Rodrigo was badly wounded, bleeding everywhere, but he gasped, "Stop that damn thing. Burn this place to the ground. Find her. Save her."

Chris nodded, putting a hand over the man's gushing stomach. Rodrigo coughed, desperately, "...Antarctica. The-the-the base there. Check the mainframe...in the...in the...main...house...hurry..."

He died on a blubber of blood from his mouth, grunting, and his last words filled the rumbling air, "...I can see the lights on Broadway..."

Chris rose, clutching the weapon. It was an enormous grenade launcher. It fairly glittered like Excalibur pulled from the stone by Arthur. He wielded it like a hero, turning toward the worm that ERUPTED from the Earth as if to devour him.

It came for him, roaring, and Chris blasted it in the face grenade launcher. The impact was immediate. It smelled like roasting flesh and dog shit on fire. It stunk up the cavern until Chris gagged and covered his mouth.

The worm flopped. It plopped. It jerked and "did the worm" which made sense where the dance craze had come from. It wiggled and wriggled and smashed into walls. Its face was totally obliterated like someone had ...well...hit it in the snoot with a M32 grenade launcher.

It twitched, it switched, it trailed uselesslly...and died on a spluttering burp of grotesque mucus and guts.

The silence was painful.

Until the body twitched twice. Chris hurried to reload the weapon, panicking, and dropped the shell from his blood slick palm - twice. IDIOT, his mind taunted, GET IT TOGETHER! KILL THE WORM!

But it was like Solo slitting the belly on the tauntaun. The guts tumbled free in a pungent, offensive wash -and Leon Kennedy rolled free, grunting, gasping, dripping with old mucus and digestive juices.

He shouted, at the ceiling, "I CAN'T FUCKING STAND THIS PLACE! I NEED A NEW JOB! I HATE MY LIFE! I AM LYING IN WORM GUTS! I WAS SWALLOWED BY A MONSTER! I QUIT! YOU HEAR ME!? I FUCKING QUIT THIS JOB!"

Chris, a hand over his mouth, offered the other one to him in the mess of the dead beast. " You smell like ass dude...you have intestines in your hair man."

And Leon kicked him in the knee.

Logically, he should have prepared for it. As it was, he went down beside the other man with a squelching plop of disgusting noise. Two heroes, ass deep in monster guts, staring at the ceiling of the cave where they'd likely die if they didn't get moving, surrounded by the stench of shit and decay.

A really bad movie probably started this way.

As it was, they didn't have time to piss and moan about it, they had to find Claire.

But it didn't stop Chris from musing, "How did you survive in its fucking belly man?"

Naturally, there was no good answer.

But Leon did choose that moment to let nature take it's course and finally let out the painful fart that he'd been hoarding since this all started. It made a pbbbbt sound and added to the stench of the dead beast as they got to their feet.

Chris gave him a very droll look as they stumbled away.

Leon, angry, shouted, "What?! I can't do that around your sister, ok!? I can't. And I haven't taken a shit in days. I smell like ass already, so do you, who cares?! Really? Who cares? I've been wanting to blast ass on one of these bastards since the moment this all started. Payback is a bitch. I only wish I'd done it on a lighter and lit that son of a bitch up while I was at it."

Chris stood there for a moment. They both did, glaring at each other...until finally Chris started laughing. He just...laughed. Leon followed suit, shaking his head.

Sometimes, it seemed, even when you were screwed...you just had to cut loose, cut the cheese, and laugh.


End file.
